Heir of A Magus
by Gudoluk
Summary: Harry comes into his magical inheritance at age 14, three years early. He leaves 4 Privet Drive with his new powers and goes off on his own. New allies and friends as well as more villains.
1. Prologue

Compass Points

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or anything in this story. They belong to a woman named J.K Rowling. I want to own it though. Think she'll give it to me for $100.

Warnings: Graphic Violence, Blood, Obviously Gore, Lemon and Lime, Graphic sex scenes (not sure whether to go m/m or m/f), Weasley bashing of the Ron maybe other variety, Dumbledore bashing

Pairings: not sure possibilities are Harry/Draco or Harry/Hermione. The other pairings might be Neville/Luna or Neville/Hermione depends on the first.

**Prologue:**

Rain battered the window of Merlin's Tower as a man awaited the arrival of his three companion. Merlin, who else would live in Merlin's Tower, waved his hand towards the door that seemed to open and unlock itself. In stepped his three companions for the past decade. Arthur Pendragon, king of all of England, walked in and took off his heavy cloak. King Arthur was the most exceptional Earth Elemental Magus to have been born. Arthur playfully shook water at the next arrival who slowly took of the cloak obscuring the arrival's face.

Nimue's large smile helped ease up the gloomy atmosphere as she flicked her hand outwards, stopping the water and sending it back to its sender. Merlin grinned as his wife of many years soaked Arthur in rainwater, he should have known better not to have messed with an Water Elemental Magus with her own element.

The third arrival was Arthur's wife, Guinevere. She wore a bright white cloak, fitting for a master of wind. Guinevere took off her cloak, revealing a dark green dress. Arthur gave her a peck on the cheek as he joined Merlin at the table. Nimue was already at her husband's side. Merlin was the strongest Elemental Magus among them with Fire being his element.

Merlin slowly kissed Nimue's neck and started to work his way up until he was exploring the caverns of Nimue's mouth. Arthur discreetly coughed and said," If you two are done having fun, will Merlin please explain why you called us here?" Merlin disengaged himself from Nimue as his face took on a more serious expression.

"I have been gifted or cursed with visions of the future," explained Merlin," There are many paths with which the future will take but the future of the planet will depend on the outcome of the fight between our heirs and Morgana's heir." The four seated at the table shuddered as a dark feeling tingled down their spines. Morgana le Fay wanted the Elemental powers and magic the four commanded. She was of the thought that if she couldn't have the power of Mother Nature then woe be the person who did. She learned magic that could and would taint the soul of the user. Morgana created the first Dark Arts. The four Magus formed history's first magical organization, The Complector Cuspis. All of them worked hard to created a network of allies and spies. Similar to the Dark Mark, anyone who had the mark of the Complector Cuspis, an ornate compass rose, could identify others who had the mark as well. Morgana used the same idea and created a chilling symbol of a skull with a snake slithering out of its mouth. Merlin liked to call it Morgana's Mark and anyone who took it was chained to her by a magical bond willingly or not.

Merlin continued," Morgana has the bane of England for much too long. If we are hard pressed to end her life now, her heir will cling to life just as tenaciously as she will. Our heirs will need the information we have and our magical weapons. They will be both our blood heir and magical heir. The battle I have seen will end the line of le Fay and the dark taint that comes with them. Each of us must write down our knowledge and safeguard it along with our weapons in a place accessible only to our heirs. We must act in haste for we don't have much time on this Earth." The three Magus nodded their agreement and set off on their task. They left magical imprints of themselves to guide their heirs when the time comes.

True to his visions, the original Complector Cuspis confronted Morgana in a magical showdown that showed off both groups magical finesse. One by one Merlin saw his companions fall, Arthur to one of the raised dead, Guinevere went into shock and Morgana cut her down unmercilessly. Merlin swallowed his grief as he let a stream of fire flow towards Morgana. She sacrificed her dead to the flames and let a dark curse fly. Merlin watched as the curse flew past him and struck Nimue. She gasped in pain and fell on the ground, writhing in pain. Morgana laughed and took advantage of the lull in fighting to make a slashing motion with her hand and magically cut Nimue's throat. Merlin finally let the grief overwhelm him as he detonated his magical core. The wave of pure magic and grief swept across the Earth. Morgana was instantly vaporized. The land was scarred and refused to hold life or ambient magic for over 400 years.

**a/n**: So the question is should I go Harry/Draco or Harry/Hermione. Either way there will be scenes of explicit "intercourse", those will be marked by ~~~~Chapter Title~~~~. You can skip it because there will be no plot in those chapters. If there is I'll summarize it in the next chapter.

**Complector Cuspis**- Compass Points


	2. Fire, Manipulations

**Chapter 1**

**a/n** Of course nothing belongs to me it belongs to J.K. Rowling. This won't be a child Harry fic. Just saying

Warnings:  some swearing, mentions of abuse, a rant by Harry Potter

July 31,1986

A boy sat under the cupboard. He stared bleakly into the darkness surrounding him. If he could see past the dark, his eyes would have seen the dreary cobwebs and the blood-stained floor. Even with not much to see, the boy desperately wished for some light, oh that and maybe food and water. He gasped as the darkness seemed to try and suffocate him. He had been stuck in the cupboard for more than a day. His "loving" aunt was punishing him when she saw a weed in her "precious" garden. She screamed profanities at him and threw him into the cupboard. The boy gasped in pain as he shifted his body on the threadbare rug he called his bed. He used some large hand-me downs as a pillow. The boy still yearned for a glimmer of light no matter what he did. The dark reminded him of no food or water, it gave birth to his deepest nightmares. He thought he heard a deep cackling laugh and a voice that made him feel warm on the inside scream in response. The boy shuddered and said quietly to himself, "Happy Birthday." The nightmare or was it a memory repeated over and over until finally the boy could take no more. He screamed and started to cry when the walls of his cupboard were illuminated in a bright orange glow. He looked around for the light source but didn't see it. That was until looked down at his hand. His hand was on fire! Odd he didn't feel burnt. His hand felt normal. If any wizard was there, they would have recognized what and who the boy was. The boy was Harry James Potter and he was a Fire Elemental.

###############################################

July 30. 1994

Eight years later, at the age of 14, Harry James Potter wondered if finding out he was a wizard made his life any better. Sure he got to move to a "real" room which only consisted of a twin size bed and bookshelf. Sure he got to escape the Dursley's for 9 months. Sure he could do magic that he only once dreamed about, but being the Boy-who-Lived as well as a wizard really fucked up whatever benefits he had from being a wizard. Everybody expected him to be the Golden Boy, the most well-behaved, boot-licking, ass-kisser the world has ever seen. They acted like he had no opinion and was going to follow the whole life plan they worked out for him. Let's see, marry a red-head like his father did, become an Auror, be a magical prodigy, have an extreme need for attention and the most important part kill Voldemort. Thank you Wizarding World, lay all your hopes on one teenage boy. Instead of fighting the Death Eaters, the Wizarding World decided to cower in fear and nudge Harry towards whatever threat Voldemort threw at them. He was sick of it even the Order of the Phoenix was next to useless. Dumbledore said that everybody deserved a second chance even Lord Voldemort himself so let's restrict ourselves to using Stupefy and Tickling Charms okay? A good job that was doing, every Stupefy that hit a Death Eater his buddies cast Enervate and another Death Eater was back in business. Harry looked over at the clock he managed to rescue from the rubbish bin, the time was 11:59. Harry closed his eyes to try to sleep. He needed to sleep if he wanted to complete the 100 chores Aunt Petunia gave him. As he went to sleep, visions of fire danced in his head, the last coherent thought before all went dark was "odd, where was the green light and Voldemort." He slept peacefully for once with fire being the only thing on his mind.

###############################################

Same date, Somewhere in Scotland

Dumbledore was finishing up the paperwork that the Ministry gave him after the horrendous incident with the dementors and Sirius. One of the silver trinkets, shaped like a cube that spun on one of its corners, on Dumbledore's desk let out a wail that Molly Weasley would be proud of. Dumbledore snapped his head up and looked at the item in question. "Oh no, the wards on 4 Privet Drive are overloading with magic," exclaimed the old headmaster. Another trinket, this one shaped like a perfect ring that hung in midair, started to spin faster and faster, letting out a whistle and disintegrated. Dumbledore groaned, this was the trinket that was connected to seal on Harry's magic. Dumbledore bound Harry's magic himself, Harry must be weak and easy to manipulate for his plans to come to work. He grabbed his wand and signaled to his familiar, a beautiful phoenix who went by the name of Fawkes. Dumbledore grabbed the tail feathers of Fawkes and disappeared in a flash of fire.

When he reappeared , he took a step back as a waves of magic assaulted him the minute he appeared. Fawkes gave a squawk you would hear from a chicken and disappeared in a flash of fire. Dumbledore erected the most potent shield he could, the Castrum Contego. A glittering gold dome shot out his wand and created a cube-like structure around him. Dumbledore gritted his teeth, the shield blocked most of the magic coming from 4 Privet Drive but he could still feel magic assaulting him with every step he took towards the house. The wizard releasing this power must be strong indeed mused Dumbledore, maybe he could be convinced to be one of my pawns, oh sorry, I mean a member of the Order of the Phoenix. He berated himself for the mental slip-up. It was hard enough not to snicker during the Order of the Phoenix meetings during the First War. He wanted to laugh when they thought they were privy to the knowledge he had or were "important" to him, no they were his pawns and could be sacrificed at the flip of a coin. All but Snape bought the grandfatherly leader of the light he was portraying. It didn't matter if Snape knew, Dumbledore could always threaten to throw him, proverbially of course physical activities weren't exactly a Light activity, to the Aurors who would lock him in Azkaban because of his Dark Mark.

The Headmaster of Hogwarts magically unlocked the door and tracked the source of the waves of magic. Quite easy actually, the waves of magic were so strong they were physical, it was just a matter of playing Hot or Cold. The stronger the waves of magic become the closer he got. He walked up the stairs to the second floor and walked to the end of the corridor. No, the waves of magic got weaker here. He guessed the disgusting Dursleys must be sleeping behind the closed doors. Dumbledore never regretted sending Harry to this hell-hole. Harry needed to look up to whoever saved him from the daily abuse he received. Dumbledore had spied on the family for days before deciding they would be abusive enough for either Neville or Harry, whoever turned out to be the Boy-Who-Lived. He took care of the will his parents made and managed to put Sirius, a pureblood who could have gained custody of his godchild easily, in Azkaban. He also put seals that would bind their magical cores to him, giving him a boost of power if anybody challenged him. Neville came out the worst because no matter, he needed the extra power much more. Dumbledore chuckled, everybody thought Neville was almost a squib but no one would ever guess that Neville had the potential to be just as powerful as him if not more.

He walked to the other end of the corridor where the waves of magic got stronger and stronger until Dumbledore stopped at the last door. He gently opened the door and saw his plan for Harry to become a sacrificial lamb and be given to Voldemort failed. After all no wolf or predator would dare eat a lamb who was covered in flames and gave off waves of magic that the ocean would be jealous of. Dumbledore walked over to beside the bed. The flames hadn't burned down the house yet or even his clothes or sheets. Dumbledore decided everything was ok even though the wards were so thin he was sure Voldemort could fart and the wards would collapse. He spun on his heel and Apparated away. " Harry seemed to fine, oh well too bad the wreathes of flames didn't kill him," thought Dumbledore, "Maybe he'll die of magical exhaustion, nobody could produce enough magic to make the waves of magic Harry did and sustain it for the whole night. No matter how it happened Harry had to die for Voldemort to be defeated. Maybe he himself would have to cast the final curse. No matter the mourning the Wizarding World will do or the grief, after all it was for the Greater Good."

###############################################

The magic rippled across England waking its magical residents. Hermione was shocked awake by it. As the magic continued to pulse through her body she thought it seemed familiar. Ron didn't wake up at all, he slept like a dead dog and snored as loud as the backfire of a muffler. All over England wizards woke up from the waves of magic emitting from Harry Potter. Not all of them were human though. Johannes Mordecai looked around as the magic pulsed through him. He was confused about it. It reminded him of a man he was proud to call a friend and ally many centuries ago. Johannes licked his fangs as he continued to enjoy his glass of blood. He must inquire about this "anomaly." His friend has warned him that sometime in the future something might happen like this. Johannes laughed, change was coming to the Wizarding World whether they wanted to change or not.

Voldemort felt it. As a spirit all magic felt tenfold more than they did when he had a body. The waves of magic felt a sledgehammer blow every time it pulsed through him. He recognized it, he knew it as well as himself. Looks like Harry Potter might be a sniveling weakling after all.

Dumbledore finally found it. After searching through some of the most obscure books in his library for the reason what caused Harry to come into his magical inheritance so early. Magical inheritances came to wizards at age 17. Dumbledore came into his magical inheritance at age 16, a year before he was supposed to. He didn't know why but he never pursued this line of thinking because he busy having "fun" with Grindelwald. In the Grimoire of Fortuna, he found why he and Harry came into their magical inheritance so early. The grimoire said that the more powerful the wizard the earlier their magical inheritance came. There were multiple classifications of magic power. From weakest to strongest, there was Hedge-witch(or Hedge-wizard),Magician, Gifted Magician, Adept, Sorcerer, Grand Sorcerer, Mage, Arch wizard and Magus. Dumbledore read this with a shocked expression. He himself was only a Grand Sorcerer. So he got his inheritance at age 16 so Harry was 14 so going by that Harry had to Mage or above. No it couldn't be. Dumbledore had to the most powerful wizard. If Harry become more powerful , they might flock to him as a leader of a light instead of him. He didn't want to years of manipulations to end with an upstart like Harry to take it away from him.

Neville was still awake. Under the wards of Longbottom manor, he could practice "magic." That's not what his Grandmother called it when he practiced. She called it parlor tricks and said that he was almost a squib. Augusta Longbottom had already decided that Neville might as well keep up with his Herbology work, might as well when the only spell he could cast correctly was Wingardium Leviosa. Neville did the wand motions for the spell: Expelliarmus, a full circle then a flick. Of course it didn't work, nothing happened except a weak shake from the red ball that was Neville's target. Neville's face took on a surprised look as he felt a wave of magic pass through him and another wave and another. That didn't come from him. Madame Longbottom rushed into his room. "Neville was that you?"she said. He shook his head, the level of magic that powerful was beyond his reach. Mrs. Longbottom looked crestfallen for an instant, she had finally hoped Neville might have reached some kind of skill in magic. She walked away dejectedly. Neville's fragile non-existent self esteem and confidence took another blow, he had failed his aunt again. His wand suddenly felt unnaturally warm and his body was tingling. The seal Dumbledore put on him overloaded with magic and broke. Oh well might as well try that disarming spell again. He did the normal full circle and a flick. Expecting no result, he closed his eyes and cradled his head. Why couldn't he have at least some magical skill? Wallowing in self-pity, he didn't notice the large beam of red light hit the ball, embedding it into the wall.

Krakatau never exploded in 1883, its wizarding population actually outgrew the muggle's to the point where the Statute of Secrecy was close to being breached on a daily basis. Soon the wizards put the island under Fidelius and hid away from the Muggle world. On 1927, something happened. The Fidelius charm weakened and some of the land started to show. Those who didn't know about the wizarding world still couldn't see the flora and fauna and the buildings that were still on Krakatau. The revealed land that the Muggles could see did grow larger and larger until the wizard council renewed the Fidelius charm. Non-magical people already knew about the revealed land so it never got hidden away. The reason I, as an author go on and on about this, is that something was stirring in the fires of the Krakatau volcano. By now, Harry's magic was faint enough that those not perfectly attuned to magic couldn't feel it. The fire salamander could though. It was waiting since Merlin's time when Merlin showed him a vision of Harry using magic. Merlin's vision were always vivid, they also came with smell. The Fire Salamander instinctively knew that he was going to be Harry's familiar. The fire salamander was dark red with flames that seemed to be under its skin. He had gold eyes with a cat-like pupil. The salamander was relatively small, only the size of an adult's hand. He flicked its tongue out to taste the magic during the vision. The fire salamander decided to sleep in a magic-enriched fire, and there was no better place than Krakatau. It was time to leave the fire and travel to Harry's side to become his familiar. He wanted to get there ahead of the others. Besides what better familiar for a Fire Magus then for the animal reincarnation of Fire.

The Fire Salamander disappeared in a flash of fire, an ability most Fire Elemental animals share. The foolish humans who use sticks to do magic called it flaming, an apt name. He appeared in a small room with the customary flash of fire that meant he had flamed in. The salamander flamed onto the bed and examined the human that was destined to have him as a familiar. On looks alone, the salamander could see that Harry was a Fire wizard of the highest degree, a Fire Magus. Harry was wreathed in flames from head to toe. It wrapped around him like a boa constrictor enveloping in him magical Fire. The Fire Salamander decided that Harry had enough sleep, explaining everything may take awhile. He flicked out his tongue and proceed to lick Harry's cheek until Harry slowly opened his eyes.

###############################################

In a dark cave underneath an unspecified location in London. A person was sitting, seemingly in a trance until he felt the magic released by one teenage boy on his birthday. He opened his eyes. They glowed a fiery red for a brief instant until they settled to his normal sky blue eyes. " Great Merlin, what was that," exclaimed the man. The man blushed deeply perhaps sifting through the minds of wizards in London gave him the appropriate lingo of the current times. After all nobody said their own name when they were surprised.

**a/n** OK another relatively short chapter. Really it's just setting up for the next chapter. The fun won't start until the pairings are set up. Whoever Harry and Neville are paired up with, are the people who will be the Water Magus and the Wind Magus, respectively.

**Harry/Draco**: 2

**Harry/Hermione**: 1

**Neville/Luna**:1

**Neville/Hermione**:1

Castrum Contego - Castle Shield


	3. Explanations, Earth

**Chapter 3- Explanations, Earth**

Warnings: cussing, sexual innuendos

**a/n;** This will be divided between Neville and Harry. All conservations with the fire salamander are in Armenian except thought speaking which will be in _italics_.

**August 1,1996 5:31**

Harry moaned, a sound many of his "fan-girls" would be very happy to have recorded and played back to them many times. Whatever time it was, it was much too early to be waking up, he tried to go back to sleep. Another lick from the fire salamander and Harry's fluttered open. He was still muddled from the sleeping, wait his Aunt never woke him by licking him. Oh no! was Ripper, his Aunt Marge's vicious bulldog here? The thought jolted him to a semi- wakefulness state and he reflexively swept hi s hand towards the source of the lick. The fire salamander was swept off the bed and indignantly screamed insults in Armenian, yes it was the name of a muggle language but the name was stolen from the name magical Amphibians called their tongue something similar to Parseltongue. The Armenian from the fire salamander shocked Harry awake. The thing he swiped off was warm and could talk?

Harry apologized profusely to the little salamander.

"'I said I'm sorry."

"That's no reason to swipe an innocent salamander who was just trying to help you." countered the world's most annoyed fire salamander.

" Come on I'm sorry. Now you said you wanted to tell me something," argued Harry.

"Okay fine, but you better listen I have more than one important thing to tell, I'm not going to repeat myself again. I'm one of your familiars."

"WHAT?" yelled Harry

"Hmm dense much? What part of me being your familiar do you not understand ?" snickered the fire salamander. "A familiar is a magical creature who bonds with a wizard or witch."

"But why me?"bemoaned Harry.

"Stop whining like a little brat. Human up and grow a pair. As I was saying, familiars are the animal half of the wizard or witch's soul, mind, and magical core. Sometimes it's the familiar isn't a perfect fit, the magical animal fits only a tiny part of the soul, mind or core or frankly it isn't a magical animal (*cough* like Trevor the toad *cough*). I'm a perfect match for you."

"How? You're sarcastic and bossy. "

If the salamander could raise an eyebrow, it would have.

" And..."

Harry look flustered and said," You can't be my familiar. We don't get along."

"Well Harry, why don't we have the familiar bonding ritual and let your magic decide."

" Fine how do you know if your my perfect match for my soul, mind and magic."

The fire salamander chuckled," You'll know. The bonding process is quite simple. We trade blood "

"OK fine have it your way." Harry stuck out his tongue at the bossiest fire salamander. "But wait? What's your name anyway? "

" My name is Braze. " replied the newly named fire salamander. Braze nipped Harry's hand.

" Ouch! What the hell!" screamed Harry. Braze nipped one of own webbed feet and held it over Harry's open mouth. A drop of fire in the shape of a teardrop fell into Harry's mouth. A flash of white light enveloped both of them. The wound on Harry healed into a small fire shaped scar.

Harry instinctively went up to suck his thumb. That was of course until he heard a sarcastic voice in his head "_You know just because I bit you doesn't mean you have to revert back to a one year old human." _

"What was that?" Harry looked around for the voice. "_Come on. You can't be that dense." _ Harry recognized the sarcasm the second time around. He looked down at Braze, who wore a smug expression on his salamander face. "_Told you I was you're familiar."_ Oh that was you? Now you can speak into mind." "_You can too."_

_"Really wow that's really amazing."_ thought Harry, "_You're really my familiar aren't you?"_

_" Yes you daft boy. I was trying to explain that you to you in the first place. What else would I be? One of your ridiculous fan-girls passing off as an animal just to hear the moan you made when you woke up?"_

Harry blushed, he didn't know about the moaning thing but he wouldn't put it pass a girl smitten with him like Ginny to transfigure herself into an animal just to get close to him. He held up his hand to see the fire shaped scar on the thumb on the side opposite to his palm. Nice, now the wizarding world can fawn over this scar too. "_See I told you, you are sarcastic. Now according to your lovely analysis of my personality, you just have to be bossy so I can be your familiar"_ remarked Braze.

"Sod off"

_"Good you've got the bossy part down too"_

###############################################

Neville liked plants. In fact he loved being with plants and feeling the soft dirt in his hands. So far this was the only thing that made his Grandmother proud. He was currently tending to a rare plant that reacted badly dark creatures, rare enough not to have a real name. Neville liked to call it, the Angel Plant. The Angel Plant supposedly gave off a light that warded off dark creatures. Grindelwald tried to kill off the whole species of plants because they were the first line of defense against his army that had plenty of dark creatures the Angel Plant could ward off. Voldemort took a shot at eradicating the Angel Plant too. Now it was one of the rarest of plants in the Wizarding World. He had already grew quite a bit of Angel Plants. He had a greenhouse full of them and they grew wildly along the border of the Longbottom Manor holdings, just in case.

Neville blinked away a few tears as he thought of the perpetual look of disappointment on his aunt's face, every time she looked at him. Why couldn't he make his aunt proud? The trowel he held in his hand slipped to the dirt. The trowel lay on the ground for a few seconds, before the angel plant next to it suddenly grew quickly and enveloped the trowel in greenery and the white flowers of the Angel plant. What was that? That was weird. Angel plants grew slowly, even magically enriched ones only grew as fast as the Muggle flowers did. He looked around and saw something that made his heart skip a beat, or twenty.

###############################################

Harry was feeling better than he did in awhile. He got a familiar and got a good night's rest. This obviously meant his life completely utterly sucked. Ron's idea of a good day would be his mom getting the newest Quidditch broom, Hermione's would be having the whole day in an undiscovered library of the Founders, but his was a good night's rest. Yea his life sucked.

_"Please stop whining." _interjected Braze, his newly acquired familiar. _"You're day is going to get better. Maybe, it depends on how you take this news. You're a Fire Magus."_

"What am I?"

_"Are you hard of hearing too? You are a Fire Elemental. You have immense control of the element Fire and have an affinity for all of the other elements: Wind, Water and Earth. Fire creatures will give you more respect than other wizards. You are powerful as well. Elemental and all other inheritances come to wizards at age 17. You're 14. Need I say more. "_

"Hell yea you should. I don't remember anything happening when I turned fourteen."

_"Something did. You were enveloped in fire and you woke up half the wizarding world with the magical backlash that came with it."_

"My bed isn't burnt neither are my clothes."

_"Was the bed and clothes touching your body."_

"Yea, so?"

_"Anything touching a Fire Elemental's body becomes fire-proof, to a degree of course. The more powerful the Fire Elemental is the stronger the flames have to be to burn the item the Fire Elemental is touching. Of course the Fire Elemental himself or herself are extremely fire-proof."_

"Cool now I won't have second degree burns when Aunt Petunia hits me with her frying pan. Any other cool perks of being a Fire Elemental."

_"Well, you can throw around fire like others throw around insults. Extreme control of fire allows you to mold it into shapes, that you can animate into the shape. The fire will act like the shape and can move without your constant control. Other elementals can do that with their element too. The more powerful Fire elementals can summon spirits that are pure fire, they'll obey you out of respect from your fire talent. I'm pretty sure there are more "perks" you have. I can't see to remember any more other than the fact that you get me as an familiar." _

"Not sure about the familiar part but the rest sounds great. How did you find me though? There are blood wards hiding my location and I'm pretty sure I didn't enter the Adopt a Fire Salamander as a Familiar program."

_"Wow laying on the sarcasm a bit thick. I recognized your magic from the vision."_

"What vision?"

"Mine of course." said a voice from the door.

###############################################

Neville froze completely at the sight of one of the most feared magical creatures in the world. The nundu, a leopard-like creature with a breath that carried disease and death, stalked closer to Neville. Why he wasn't dead from the breath of the nundu yet he didn't know? The nundu was roughly the size of a leopard too. The nundu walked up to him and pushed him over with the light tap of his paw. The nundu's face was over his and his legs were on either side of Neville's body. Neville found something interesting about the nundu, he didn't know why he found this fact more important than the dangerous animal about to maul him to death. He blushed as he noticed that the he-nundu was actually she, probably because of the lack of male genitals.

She opened her jaws and breathed on him. Neville was sure he was dead now. The breathe of the nundu smelled nice, something similar to the earthy scent of dirt and lavender. It felt comforting that one of his favorite scents was the last thing he would smell. She moved her head down and nipped Neville's neck on the side. To his credit, his eyes remained open the whole time. Blood welled up and Neville went to wipe it clean. The nundu intercepted both hands with her front paws. She licked his neck clean and nipped her back paw. That was odd, he wasn't dead yet. The nundu took one of her back paws and slammed it down on his stomach. Neville's eyes bulged and his mouth opened as he gasped for air. She held her bleeding paw to his mouth and a drop of blood fell into his mouth. Neville was still stunned, he didn't whether to be scared witless or laughing because he wasn't dead yet. The drop entered his open mouth and he swallowed on instinct. It was iridescent green and tasted like dirt. He was just as surprised as the nundu's actions as the flash of light that forced Neville to close his eyes. The wound on his neck healed into a detailed vine scar. The pressure on his arms disappeared and he immediately got up. The nundu stared him with her unique purple eyes. "That was unbelievable."

_"I completely agree with you." _

Neville jumped about a foot in the air. "Who was that?" he said tentatively.

"_Why me of course? Who else would it be? I'm pretty sure I'm the only one with you. Are you okay?"_

He stared at the nundu. No, it couldn't be her. After all, nundus weren't known for mind speaking. She stared at him with inquisitive eyes. She cocked her head to the left and seemed to wait for a response. Oh, whatever. "I'm fine. What's your name?"

_"My name is Violet."_

"I can see why you were named that." He bent down and scratched under her chin. "Why didn't your breath kill me?"

_"You're nice. My breath helps plants grow and heals. I was a disappointment to my pride."_

Neville moved his scratching behind her ears. "You're not a disappointment, your breath is am. I'm proud of what you can do." Wow this sounded familiar, sort of like him and his aunt. Birds of a feather flock together never got truer. He sighed as Violet purred under his scratching.

"Violet, what did you just do?" _"Bonding process of course_, _I'm your familiar now."_

Neville was a pureblood who had years of training to be one. One of the lessons on being a pureblood was gaining a familiar. He knew the ins and outs of having a familiar, the more powerful the wizard the more powerful the familiar and vice versa. He knew Violet was the perfect familiar for him, the bonding process proved it. He also knew about how powerful both physical and magical nundus were. Since Violet reflected his magical core, he had to be somewhat strong right? No, this was a fluke. He was a miserable excuse for a wizard. Violet needed someone better than him. "Violet, you need to go off. You can't be my familiar. I'm not magically strong enough for you. I'm sorry." He ran off back into the manor before he could get too attached to Violet.

Violet was a confused nundu. She did everything right. The magic cloth Merlin gave her pride centuries ago was infused with the scent of the boy who she was to be her familiar. The pride passed the cloth down generation through generation from pride chief to the next pride chief. The current pride chief, Lasfice, knew she was to be the one. Violet was the first nundu since Merlin's time to not have the disease spreading breathe and the first female to be born into the pride chief family. They sent her off with the scent of Neville firmly in her brain. She found him and bonded with him. He seemed to like her but said he wasn't powerful enough? He reeked of power and Earth Elemental energy. She raced off with all the considerable speed a nundu can have, 50 miles an hour for a normal nundu. Violet would be faster and stronger after the bonding process to reflect Neville's magical core which was considerable. She ran off at the speed of 120 miles an hour, a veritable blur.

###############################################

A man with sandy blonde hair and blue eyes walked into Harry's room. This was unexpected. He got more visitors to his room than his whole time at the Dursleys.

"Who are you" asked Harry.

"I'm Merlin."

"Wow, that's amazing. How did manage to live so long without anybody noticing?" asked Harry. _  
>"I was wondering the same thing. I already left behind two skins already. Not many mortals or wizards survive that long."<em>

"What?" wondered Harry.

"_I shed my obsidian skin once every 7,500 years, because of this it's quite valuable. One of the main ingredients of the Sorcerer's Stone is the shed skin of the fire salamander."_

" Correct as always, Braze." said Merlin, " I'm actually not alive. This is a magical imprint, and I can't actually touch anybody but my heir. I also can't project magic out of my body so I can only do mind magic and that's about all. I got caught up with the recent times using lots of Legilimency "

"What happened to the real Merlin?" asked Harry

_"This I got. Merlin died when he detonated his magical core when Morgana killed Nimue." _

" I never knew that was common knowledge. The whole battle was never seen or told by anyone know. Morgana was looking for virgins to sacrifice for more power to end the power struggle between us and her."

"Us?" interjected Harry.

_"Harry, you're interrupting the person who only you can see. If he beats you up, your only defense is that a man only you can see beat you up. That doesn't help your multiple claims to sanity."_

" It's okay, Braze. Us refers to the four points of Complector Cuspis, a magical organization dedicated to stop the darkness spreading across the world. I was North Fire, the leader. Nimue, my wife and a powerful Water Magus, was South Water. Arthur Pendragon, king of England and Earth Magus, was East Earth. His wife, Guinevere, was a Air Magus and West Wind. We dedicated our life to fighting Morgana. She had turned the people she killed into Inferius. Actually it would be easier to show you this."

Merlin closed his eyes and his brow furrowed in concentration. The room blurred and changed. The dull grey walls disappeared and changed into a scenic background of trees and a quaint village marred only by the burning huts and dead people in various positions. Merlin was sharing his memory of the night day the Merlin died. Merlin had kept a connection to his imprint to keep up to date with the events he would experience after he made his magical imprint. (After this, is a memory of the last day of Merlin)

###############################################

The Complector Cuspis appeared in a flash of their elements. Morgana laughed as she saw them appear. With a wave of her hand, she reanimated the people she murdered into Inferius.

"Ha ha you're a bit late to stop these deaths. Let them be the cause of yours."

The Inferius plodded towards the four. Merlin conjured fire and molded them into phoenixes. They attacked the Inferius with gouts of flames. Arthur raised golems while Guinevere called down lightening and shaped it into swords for the golems. The conjurations fought with the Inferius leaving the Complector Cuspis left to deal with Morgana. She laughed again and sent a wave of dark magic against them. Merlin raised a wall of fire to intercept it. Arthur, Guinevere and Nimue were conjuring a bolt with their elements. Merlin bought them time by molding the fire into a large bow and shot arrows made from fire at Morgana. She laughed in a way that left no clue on how sane she was. She caught them with her bare hand and ignored the severe burns she sustained. Morgana sacrificed half of the surviving Inferius and reabsorbed the death magic she used to create them to heal her burns. She then spammed concentrated death magic at the four hoping to land a lucky shot. Merlin burned away four of the bolts of the death magic and copied Morgana as he caught the remaining bolts and flung them back. Morgana just stood there and reabsorbed the death magic that was flung at her.

The conjured phoenixes and golems were dispatching the Inferius but took heavy losses. They were overwhelmed and the Inferius moved to attack the backs of Arthur and the women. Years of sword training paid off as Arthur turned around and dodged the charge of the leading Inferius. He gestured towards the ground and an ornate sword made of earth and thorns rose up into his hand. Arthur dove into the Inferius mass and slashed at the reanimated corpses. He animated two more golems to guard his back as he protected the women. One of the golems was ripped to pieces by the Inferius and Arthur and the other golem disappeared in the crowd of Inferius. Guinevere looked back with a chocked sob. Nimue elbowed her in her ribs to help her. The elemental bolt would end Morgana's life if they could successfully pack if with enough power. Guinevere still didn't move to help Nimue. Nimue growled in annoyance as she put more power into the bolt, she conjured water and splashed some in Guinevere's face. Guinevere came too and poured more power into the bolt along with Nimue. That was until she heard a strangled gasp from behind her.

Arthur had survived the dog-pile of Inferius by the skin of his teeth. The golem didn't survive and now was rubble at his feet. He fired pieces of the now deceased golem at the remaining Inferius. His conjured sword was shattered and most of his power was in the bolt and the golem-rubble at his feet. Golems were notoriously hard to raise and one golem was a hard task but the 7 golems Arthur raised were an impossible task for somebody outside of the Complector Cuspis. He was now resorted to conjuring deadly plants and firing pieces of Earth at the Inferius. They came too close and he went to hand-to-hand combat, or rather his hand to the teeth and hands of the Inferius. He became drained as he fought off the Inferius with punches and kicks that did little or nothing. The first Inferius to get past his guard clawed his left arm. He hissed in pain and punched the Inferius in the gut and kicked out the Inferius's legs. The lack of the use of his left arm led to his chest being bitten. The wounds piled up and Arthur finally collapsed as he felt dizzy from blood loss. The Inferius fell into a feeding frenzy as they fought for Arthur's flesh.

Guinevere screamed in pain as she sent cutting winds to kill the Inferius. She rushed to Arthur's side as his eyes started to close. She knelt down and Arthur whispered into her ear and took his last breath. Guinevere started to cry and cradled Arthur's head in her lap and rocked back to forth. Morgana laughed as she dodged another gout of fire.

"You're quartet of Magus wizards are down to two. Poor Arthur lost his heart in his work and decided to quit. Poor Guinevere lost his mind and quit too. " She let out another cackle and sent a dark red beam at Guinevere. Guinevere saw the bolt and welcomed it with open arms as her body exploded into a fine red mist. Nimue decided that the bolt was a waste of time and sent it flying towards Morgana. Morgana crossed her arms in a cross and erected a shield. The bolt and her shield collided and remained there for a few seconds until an explosion rippled through the air from the colliding magic. Merlin shielded himself and Nimue. When the dust settled, Morgana was still on her feet but looked much worse for wear.

"You bitch, I could have been killed by that bolt. I will kill you, you god damn whore clinging to Merlin's aprons like the prostitute you are." She said this as she let loose with the dark curses she painstakingly invented towards Nimue. Nimue sent water to intercept the curses and sent more water at high enough speed to cut through flesh and bone easily. Morgana ducked and chanted a curse. The Complector Cuspis and Morgana all did wordless spells, only when they overpowered their spells did they say it. Morgana sent it flying. Merlin sent flames that a dragon of olden times would be proud of. The curse continued towards Nimue. She pulled up water to make a translucent shield of water. Nimue underestimated the power of the curse and it sailed through her shield, shattering it in the process. It struck her and she went on her knees at the pain. All of her nerves overloaded with pain and her brain shut down. Morgana cackled, " There goes the love of your life." She expected the anguished expression but didn't expect Merlin's urge to be reunited with her wife in the afterlife. Merlin detonated his magical core and the backlash and magic destroyed everything in a 400 mile radius. Morgana standing less than 20 feet away, tried to shield herself. She was vaporized beyond a doubt. The vision ended in a rush of magical power and explosions.

###############################################

Neville was a fool to believe that the nundu actually bonded with him because of his magical power. He was weaker than the hedge witch that tottered among the muggles selling herbal remedies. He went into his room and slammed the door. He cradled his head and moaned in sadness. He was a failure at being a wizard. He didn't notice Violet break the door with her front paw and walk in.

Violet would have been lost if she couldn't smell Neville's scent. She raced through the corridors and up the stairs to the top until she came to a door. Neville's scent was the strongest here, she hoped he wouldn't mind if she busted the door open.

A head thrust itself in Neville's lap. He blinked away a few tears in surprise. The head in his lap was soft and furry. He looked down at inquisitive purple eyes. No, no, no if he spent more time with Violet he wouldn't be able to get over her when she left him for somebody more suited to her, somebody more powerful. She purred and looked at him.

"_Hello again. Why did you run away?" _

Neville only sighed. The nundu was obviously confusing him with somebody else. Nobody in their right mind would bond with him. Only Trevor the toad would bond with him. He stroked her head and she purred. He really liked Violet, she was a beautiful animal. She deserved much better than a boy who couldn't cast Stupefy. She purred and decided he had stalled enough. Violet could sense his surface thoughts. What she could sense, shocked her.

_"You're not weak. You reek of power and magic. There is so much magic in you, it's in your scent."_

"No I'm weak. There's nothing I can do, even potions are beyond my grasp. I'm a failure. Go on leave me."

_"I won't leave you. You're my master and I'm your familiar. I'll never leave you. You have to believe me, you are more than a match for a nundu in power."_

"Ok I'll believe you, but there is no proof. I really like you but I just met you." replied Neville in a shaky voice.

_"I really like you too. How about you cast a spell?"_

Neville sighed. It was worth a shot. He practiced day after day. He wasn't going to better in two seconds. He did the full circle and a flick and quietly uttered Stupefy. Neville was aiming for a small vase that made it into his room. Of course being Neville, it didn't quite work out the way he planned. The red beam of light hit the vase and proceeded to drive it through his bedroom wall. The vase continued to break through the next wall and the next wall and the next until it finally came to a rest two rooms over. Neville looked through the multiple vase shaped holes with a surprised look. That worked a little too well. Violet looked at him with a smug look.

_"Told you so."_

###############################################

Dumbledore was a very pissed old man. Harry was escaping from under his thumb. Dumbledore had placed multiple charms on Harry. One to measure how much magic he had, one for his health, one for tracking him and the list goes on and on. Truth be told, all of the little silver trinkets on his shelf and desk were solely devoted to the charms on Harry. The little compass suspended on a pedestal was the tracking charms, the cute miniature jungle gym was for his health, that waterwheel spinning furiously and letting out smoke monitored Harry's magic regeneration and etc. Dumbledore knew when Harry sneezed or when he went outside, hell he even he even had a trinket that showed him Harry's body that perfectly coincided with the real Harry's body at anytime. Of course, he didn't tell Harry about the purpose for all these silver instruments, he would think Dumbledore was a creepy old pedophile, which maybe he was. It was all for the Greater Good, of course.

But not all the instruments where centered on Harry. There was one lone trinket monitoring the seal on Neville, a delicate vine and trellis, hidden in the multitude of instruments. Dumbledore forgot about it in the rush of creating the instruments and placing the monitoring charms on a young Boy-Who-Lived. It was no longer silver but an ashy grey color. The top of the instrument was slowly falling apart as the seal disintegrated.

**a/n** Still lots of loose ends and explanations but there will be more action and training. I'm planning on three familiars for each person. I'm having trouble with the Water Magus's familiars though. I would like suggestions. In return I'll tell the contributor the familiars I've decide on for each person as a thank you gift. The other two main characters are still to be decided on (i.e. the voting for pairings), and the person who doesn't get picked (Hermione, Luna or Draco) will still be a main part in the story and they'll have their very own pairing. Thanks for reading.

Harry/Draco: 4

Harry/Hermione: 2

Neville/Hermione:2

Neville/Luna : 3


	4. A Familiar Discovery

**Chapter 4- A Familiar Discovery**

Warnings: beatings, violence, swearing, sexual inferences

Disclaimer: I don't own anything from the Harry Potter Universe.

August 2,1994

Augusta Longbottom was walking up to the seventh floor of Longbottom Mansion to her grandson's room. She didn't do it quite often because of her aching knees and bad back. Maybe Neville chose his room because of this. She huffed and puffed her way past the fourth floor and then the fifth and finally after over 10 minutes of dedicated stair climbing, she found herself at the 7th floor. Madame Longbottom knocked on Neville's door and looked around while she waited. Her eyes glanced over the beige curtains and the window. She liked the miniature chandelier that hung in front of Neville's door. His room was the only one in use on the whole floor. She looked at the enchanted wall paper of a tree and her eyes fell on a suspicious looking hole. It was vase-shaped? She looked at the opposite wall and saw another vase shaped hole and when she looked through that hole she saw another and another.

"NEVILLE!" she screamed.

Neville hurriedly opened his door to a very mad grandmother. If looks could kill, she could use her stare instead of Avada Kedavra. He was talking to Violet when she knocked on his door. Violet was currently stuffed into his wardrobe, mewling in discomfort.

"Hello, grandmother." said Neville meekly.

"What is the meaning of this hole?"

Neville suddenly found the carpeting very fascinating. He shuffled his feet and looked every but where his grandmother was.

"I..um...um.. you know...um..."

"Quit your stammering. Tell me what happened, now." demanded Mrs. Longbottom.

"I...um..cast...Expelliarmus...and..it..um..hit the vase...and.. the vase...um...broke through..the wall." said Neville.

Augusta Longbottom was never more furious in her life. Neville dared make holes through the walls of the Longbottom estate which had been here since the start of England and dared lie to her about what he did. Even she would be hard-pressed to punch though a wall with a vase let alone three. She gave Neville another stern look.

"How about the truth, young man?"

Neville looked up in surprise, but he did tell the truth. He started to stammer something along those lines but a crash from behind him saved him from finishing his sentence. He looked back and saw Violet sprawled out on the ground.

_"Ow, that hurt. Who's the nice lady, Neville?"_

The nice lady on the other hand wasn't feeling very "nice" at the moment. She looked at the leopard-like animal that had come tumbling out of the wardrobe with nothing but shock. The shock soon turned to protectiveness, Frank and Alice didn't sacrifice their minds for Neville to be killed by a nundu. She pulled out her wand and pointed it at the nundu. She quickly grabbed Neville and pulled him behind her. Madame Longbottom cast Expelliarmus and Stupefys at the creature in quick succession. The spells bounced off the nundu's fur. Augusta Longbottom paled and decided to try more destructive spells.

Violet was confused again. She knew she wasn't the brightest Lumos in a wand but she wasn't as dumb as the more destructive nundus who had decided that starting the Black Death among the Muggles was a good idea. The nice woman who seemed to be related to her bonded was throwing spells at her. The spells gave her tingly feelings. The woman seemed even angrier when Violet didn't seem to be affected. More lights flew at her and some them started to tingle a bit more them before. Violet started to move out of the way of some the curses. She dodged left and right until a purple curse hit her leg.

Madame Longbottom smiled in triumph as her special Bone Disintegration curse, Colenso, hit the nundu in the leg. She was aiming for the animal's skull but after most of her spells ricocheted and absorbed by the fur of the nundu she was glad if any spell hit the nundu. Ms. Longbottom lowered her wand towards the nundu and readied the final spell to finish off the nundu.

"AVA-"

Neville watched in shock as his grandmother unleashed spells upon his familiar. He tried to stop her but she was too busy casting spells against the nundu. Neville screamed incoherently when the Colenso curse hit Violet. He batted away his grandmother's restraining hand to kneel by Violet's side. Neville wrapped his arms around Violet. He looked at the green light that was building in his grandmother's wand with the second determined look he ever had, the first was when he tried to stop Harry and co. from going after the Philosopher's Stone.

"DA-KEDAVRA."

Grandmother Longbottom watched in mixture of shock and surprise as the killing curse sped towards Neville. She tried to get her wand arm to somehow block the killing curse. The curse went on its way to Neville's head.

Neville was still determined when the killing curse left the wand. He was less determined after one second. He was about to run off screaming when the curse was halfway there until he looked at Violet who was trying to stand up. Neville gathered up his meager confidence and became more determined to let Violet and him survive this. The curse hit right between's Neville's eyes and flung him back into the wall.

August 2, 1994

Once again, Harry was cursing Fate. He grimaced as he ducked under several projectiles. He twisted and dodged several more. God he was such an idiot. Why did he agree to this? Merlin, or really his magical imprint, wanted to train him. Merlin himself couldn't spar with him or demonstrate anything, but he used the next best thing. Every time he wanted to show Harry something, he showed a fragment of Merlin doing it. Harry learned plenty from the memories, but there was nothing to try them against, especially the dodging techniques he spent the last ten blood filled memories painstakingly learning, until Braze "graciously" volunteered to help with that. Apparently fire salamanders' natural state was on fire, Braze just reined in the fire into his body so he wouldn't burn 4 Privet Drive to the ground. The fire was also their life. Many salamanders died when their fires burned out. The more power a salamander had the lighter color the flames, Braze had a light blue almost bright white flame colors. Fire salamanders could throw fireballs at predators when they were in their natural state. Braze was now demonstrating this talent to a great degree by flinging them at Harry. Harry was to either catch and absorb the fire or dodge it. At least he couldn't get burnt. The trick to dodging was not to jump or dive out of the way but to find a pattern in the projectiles and move slightly out of the way. This way he could dodge and conserve strength for a counter-attack. Braze continued to launch missiles at him as Harry ducked and dodged each one. Merlin waved his hand for Braze to stop. Merlin grinned, Harry had learned wandless magic since his wand was tracked by some kind of a farce government. He was quite powerful with wandless spells even after a day of training, and could do all the old spells he could do with a wand without one now.

"Nice dodging." Merlin chuckled. Braze was grinning as well, he had fun trying to hit Harry. Harry glowered as he wandlessly banished a pillow at Braze. Braze dodged and stuck out his tongue. Harry started to grin and sent more low powered banishers at Braze.

"You're turn."

Braze dodged them by flaming behind Harry. He sent more fireballs at Harry with a flick of his tail. Harry just turned and took them on his chest. The flames hit them to no effect. Harry grinned and stuck out his tongue. This time Braze glowered and flamed onto Harry's shoulder.

_"You're no fun"_

"I know" replied Harry with a grin.

Merlin discreetly coughed."Your relative is walking up the stairs. She was projecting thoughts about punishing you for sleeping late very loudly. You might want to clean up a bit."

Harry nodded and cast wandless Scourgify at his clothes to clean off the sweat. Braze hid under Harry's shirt as Aunt Petunia unlocked the five bolts and turned the knob.

"Get up and cook breakfast, boy. I'm tired of waiting for you each morning."

Harry lowered his head and nodded as he went downstairs to flip some pancakes.

_"I don't know why you put up with that ugly horse-faced women and her family. They're just using you."_

Harry sighed, this was the thousandth time Braze brought this up, "I'm fine, really. I don't mind doing a few chores for free food, clothes and board." A few chores meant all the chores, and the free food, clothes and board were all leftovers from the Dursely Family. Braze growled angrily the first time Aunt Petunia shoved a list of chores in Harry's face and smacked him until Harry got started on the first one. Braze was ready to kill the whole family if Harry didn't put the highest power Sticking charm he could manage on Braze when Uncle Vernon and Dudley used Harry as a punching bag. Harry put the Sticking Charm on Braze every time they left his rooms. Braze was pissed off if not homicidal by now. Why did the daft boy insist on being the slave for these... these? Ugh he was so mad he couldn't think straight. Braze spent the rest of the day on Harry's shoulder thinking extremely dark thoughts about the Dursley family.

Harry groaned in pain as he lifted his arm to dust the top shelf. The bruises on his arm and lower back were black and ached. He finished with one shelf and moved on to the other. He spent the morning weeding the garden as well as cleaning the nice cars his relatives owned. In the afternoon he painted the back porch and shed. Harry was close to being done after he finished dusting. Braze hissed in warning, _"Harry! Look behind you."_

He turned and saw Dudley and his dad walk in after spending a day at the golf course with a potential client. The client was disgusted with the father and son and gladly ran off after the golf game. Of course, Vernon and Dudley took this as a sign that the client couldn't wait to go home and finalize the deal.

"Hello freak" spat Vernon as he looked at Harry in disgust, "Me and my son here spent a day golfing and we're a bit tired. Make us some dessert."

"There's no sugar left." retorted Harry.

Vernon towered over the boy and screamed, "Are you talking back to me?"

"Of course not, you probably won't know the difference even if I did." muttered Harry.

"What was that freak?" yelled Vernon, getting purple, "Are you calling me something?"

"Yea, a walrus." muttered Harry. He knew he should have been quiet but he couldn't help himself.

Vernon turned red, "What did you say to me? After we were so kind to take you in and feed you."

"O look he's hard of hearing too. " Harry mumbled with growing dread as the words slipped out of his mouth.

Vernon turned to Dudley who was watching the scene with glee, "It's about time we practice your boxing skills. Harry here was kind enough to volunteer to be the punching bag, again. " Dudley got up with a grin and walked over to Harry. He clenched his fist and threw the first punch. Harry sidestepped it easily. Dudley started get purple in the face. The freak dodged, how dare he. Dudley threw another punch and Harry took a step back to avoid the punch. Dudley growled in angry and let loose with a flurry of punches. Harry neatly sidestepped all of the blows. Dudley turned a shade of purple and tried to hit the "freak". Harry dodged them.

"Dad, the freak won't stand still."

Vernon had walked behind Harry while Dudley was "whaling" on Harry. Vernon pinned Harry's arms and held him still.

"There you go Dudders , I secured the punching bag for you. Let me test it for you."

Harry doubled over in pain as a ham-sized fist struck his gut, maybe he shouldn't have dodged now it's going to hurt worse. Dudley followed up with a blow to Harry's head. Vernon clucked in shame, "Dudley, I thought you could hit harder. Here let me show you." Vernon punched Harry repeatedly in the stomach as Harry tried to get in the fetal position and gasped for breath.

Braze was now royally pissed. He was still stuck to Harry's shoulder as that whale, Dudley repeatedly punched Harry. Braze muttered profanities as he tried to get free. By the time Vernon was done punching Harry. Harry was barely conscious. Dudley had another go at Harry and Vernon beat him with a belt. Each blow caused Harry to groan in pain and left cuts on his skin. Braze finally had enough, what use was a familiar if they couldn't help their bonded. He broke free of the sticking charm by burning his feet free and crawled out of Harry's shirt.

"Dad what the hell is that?" pointed Dudley. Vernon looked at the little fire salamander, "Must be one Harry's pets. Let's kill it." Dudley raised his fist to squash Braze when Braze launched a fireball at him. Dudley yelped in pain as the fireball gave him a slight burn on his hand.

"Ouch, daddy it hurts." wailed the whale as he collapsed on the ground in tears, clutching the wounded appendage. He assumed the same position as Harry even though the latter had broken ribs and internal bleeding while Dudley had a small burn on his hand.

"How dare the freak hurt my son." screamed Vernon, as he leered at the boy on the ground and the salamander on Harry's shirt. Braze hissed and launched a fireball at Vernon. Vernon yelped as the fireball scorched his skin black. Braze launched another and another until the head of the Dursley household was unconscious from the burns. He stopped the barrage of fireballs as he turned to his bonded wizard. Harry was moaning in pain from the punches and his skin was turning black and blue. Braze looked at Harry with concern. How was he to treat Harry, fire salamanders could do a lot but healing wasn't one of them. Harry wouldn't last the night if he didn't get some kind of treatment. He knew the Dursleys would end up hurting Harry. Braze thought long hard for a while until he found a solution.

#############

A long time ago, Merlin came to the Krakatau. He went straight to the active volcano and jumped in. The burning coals and lava were at most uncomfortable for the Fire Magus. Braze was watching the interesting person who could stand the heat of an active volcano. Merlin walked up to where Braze was hiding and poked him with his staff.

"Ouch that hurt."

"Sorry. I didn't mean to poke that hard."

Braze was shocked, "Where did you learn Armenian(magical amphibian's language sort of like Parseltongue for amphibians)?"

"Somewhere I guess. I have something to show you." said Merlin. He concentrated for a few seconds and the volcano started to shimmer. The background slowly became a blurry and nondescript. Braze saw four figures accompanied by three smaller figures each. The faces of the four were hidden in shadow except for the one face. He saw a mess of dark hair and startling green eyes that briefly held a vision dancing flames before returning to green. By his side was a dark Mastiff like dog with flames for eyes. On one shoulder was a beautiful Phoenix, it had a crest of red feathers and held herself like royalty, but on the other shoulder was what surprised him. On Harry's other shoulder lay a salamander that was grey almost black and glowed from some inner light or fire. Braze knew that salamander well, after all it was him. All four figures including the boy with green eyes raised their hands and let their magic loose. Braze sniffed the boy's magic. It was tantalizingly, a blend between lilies and the smell right after it rains. He wondered if the boy smelled like that. Braze looked at Merlin after the vision.

"Why did you show me this?"

"The boy you saw. You are to be his familiar. He is the perfect match for you." replied Merlin.

"Why should I?"

Merlin only chuckled at the impetuous tone of the salamander, "It will give you something to look forward to in the future and I have Seen that you will become his trusted friend."

Braze internally agreed. He was small for his age and he wanted nothing more than to have a friend. He had seen his elders die from boredom because their future held nothing of interest to them so they just passed away. Braze reluctantly nodded in agreement.

"Good, remember his face and magic. They'll lead you to him." With that Merlin disappeared in a rush of flame.

#############

Braze remembered that vision quite well. He had seen the two other familiars. One was some sort of dog and the other was a Phoenix. Braze knew how Phoenix could heal wounds with their tears. He needed those tears to save Harry's life. Not that he would admit it to anybody, but he grew attached to the lithe boy with green eyes. Braze knew how dangerous flaming was without a specific target in mind, but it was worth a shot to save Harry. When he flamed to Harry a few nights before, he had found the origin of the waves of magic before flaming to his side. This was far riskier. Braze closed his eyes. Here goes nothing. Braze disappeared in a flash of fire.

When he opened his eyes, he found a small clearing. This is really quaint. The clearing was beautiful. It was a perfect circle surrounded by maple, oak and yew trees. The branches of the trees intertwined above the clearing leaving the sky visible but the sun filtered through leaving the clearing well-lit with a lattice of shadows. There was a perfect circle at the top of the dome of branches, where the sun came through cleanly. Braze could come here more often. Where was the phoenix?

An angry scream rent the air as a phoenix attacked the fire salamander.

"Oi! Watch it. What are you doing?"

"Attacking you for trespassing on my territory, insolent little salamander."

"Back off, I'm not here for myself. Harry Potter, the kid with black hair and green eyes, he needs your help."

"How did you know where I was? Only the boy was to know after he read the journal of Merlin to find us. He might not be ready for to see me or the other familiar. He can't have a large ego from having three familiars. "

"Screw that shit. He'll die if you don't heal him besides the largest thing he has worth mentioning isn't his ego. (wink wink)"

"Die?" asked the phoenix with a concerned look.

"Yes die, he's suffering from broken bones and internal bleeding and we can't reveal to the Wizarding World our presence yet. There's no one else Harry can trust."

"Fine, only for him." The phoenix swooped down and grabbed Braze in her claws. Braze immediately flamed to the Dursley home. Dumbledore didn't ward the house against flaming and other elemental styles of traveling or even set up an alarm. He had to make sure Fawkes could flame into Harry's room so Dumbledore could have easy access to the boy.

Harry was still moaning in pain on the kitchen floor in a pool of his own blood. His clothes were torn and ripped from the belt lashing and his skin was either black, blue or red from multiple open gashes and cuts. His face was streaked with tears of pain. The walrus was still moaning on the ground covered in burns. Dudley however recovered from his "severe" burn and was kicking Harry. Braze saw red for a few seconds and flamed to intercept the next kick. The kick connected with the fire salamander. There was an ominous crunching sound as Braze's ribs snapped. Braze cried out in pain. Dudley grabbed the salamander and swung the salamander into the wall. Braze gasped and didn't move. Loreal trilled in anger and flamed in front of Dudley. She spread her wings protectively and screeched in warning. Dudley backed up in fear and ran out of the house.

#############

Harry came into consciousness slowly. Everything hurt. He coughed and something seeped out his mouth. He groaned in pain as he shifted his weight. His body was sticky and hot. He heard a beautiful trill in front him. Harry slowly opened his eyes. He stared into some startlingly green eyes. He looked up in surprise. The phoenix stared at him with amusement.

"Who are you?"

_"I'm Loreal .I healed you."_

Harry stared down at his body. He was covered in blood and there were multiple patches of bruises. His ribs ached and when he shifted positions they stung. All in all, he had seen better days.

"Where's Braze?"

Loreal looked sympathetic. _"He was trying to save you from the fat boy. Braze took a kick for you before I could stop him. The kick fractured five ribs and one piece imbedded into his lung. He'll take quite a while to heal because the injuries were internal. You're confined to bed rest because you suffered fractures in all but two ribs and internal bleeding, there were fractures in your arms. He's on the pillow on the floor."_

Harry looked down to the floor ignoring the stabs of pain. There on the ground was lay Braze. He was curled up and his internal fire sputtered weakly. Harry felt guilty. If Braze died it was all his fault. Braze would never forgive him for getting him hurt like that. Loreal trilled gently, trying to lighten his mood. It worked because phoenix trills and songs uplifted the spirits of those with a good soul while others who didn't only flinched and recoiled away from the sound. She decided that Harry needed to take his mind off of Braze, they would both heal in time.

"_Harry" _she trilled gently.

"How did you know my name? "

_"Merlin told me about a dark haired, green-eyed boy named Harry Potter who was to be my bonded wizard. He showed me a vision. It convinced me to wait 13 centuries of your arrival._

"Wow, you're just as beautiful as Fawkes." Loreal stiffened.

"_How do you know him?"_

"He's the familiar of my headmaster Dumbledore."

Loreal started to cry. Under different circumstances, Harry would be glad to see the tears that could heal wounds but not this time. Harry reached over to stroke her head, gritting his teeth in pain with each movement.

"What's wrong?"

_"Fawkes is my mate and has been for over a millennium. He disappeared from our nest a century ago. We were going to build a bigger nest and have chicks and..." _

Loreal burst out in more tears and Harry felt slightly guilty when the tears soothed some of the aches in his chest. Once again he comforted Loreal by stroking downy chest feathers while muttered inane soothing words. He stopped and moaned in pain as the pain in his arm became too intense to bear. Loreal stopped crying and trilled in concern.

"_Are you okay?" _

Harry gritted his teeth. It hurt too much too talk. He couldn't breathe because his ribs hurt too much with each breath, and his arms hurt. Loreal started to panic. She must have waited too long to heal his other fractures. She tentatively slit open his shirt with her claw. When Harry's chest was free of cloth, Loreal cried a few tears in Harry's mouth. Harry immediately felt warm and his chest became less constricted.

_"Harry, it might hurt when I try to heal your fractures." _Harry nodded. Loreal slowly cut open Harry's chest and exposed the flesh and muscle. Harry gasped in pain and tried to hold in his scream of agony. Loreal cried on each of the rib fractures to heal them. She closed the flesh back together and shed a few tears to close the wound.

"You might have forgot to tell me that you were going to cut me open."

_"Sorry there's no time for you to be squeamish. I still have to heal your arm fracture."_

Loreal looked sympathetic as she gently sliced open his right arm. She pried away the muscle and cartilage away from the bone as Harry gratefully passed out from the pain. Loreal cried on the fracture and watched to bone mend. She glanced at Harry and quickly drank a drop of blood from the open wound before she closed it with more tears. She bit her claw until the rough skin broke and started to bleed. She waved her wing under Harry's nose until he was about to sneeze. As Harry opened his mouth to sneeze, she let a drop of blood fall into his mouth. There was a flash of light and all of Harry's wound were healed. Hmmm maybe she would have tried the familiar bonding first. O well, it was good practice. She trilled in happiness as she stared at the phoenix tattoo on Harry's forearm.

#############

August 3,1994

Harry once again came back into consciousness. He still felt blood cover his whole body. He opened his eyes to a pair of golden and a pair of green eyes.

_"Hello Harry." _trilled Loreal, "_Your wounds are all healed so are Braze's. The familiar went deep enough that when your wounds healed, Braze's got a lot better too."_

Harry reached over and petted both of the magical animals. As he petted Loreal, he saw a hint of red on his right arm. He turned it and gasped. He has a phoenix tattoo on his arm! What did Braze do while he was unconscious? He scowled at Braze while his familiar grinned again. Loreal snickered.

_"I'm afraid that was my doing." _trilled Loreal,_" It was a side-effect of the familiar bonding process."_

"What? You're my familiar? When did this happen?"

Loreal smiled, something no bird should do_, "I did the bonding process while you were unconsciousness. We are a perfect match just like Merlin predicted. Since you met me, Merlin decided it wouldn't be any worse if your last familiar came here and bonded with you too."_

Braze disappeared in a flash of fire. When he came back, he brought somebody with him. A black dog appeared next to the little fire salamander. It looked like a Doberman. The dog looked a lot more intimidating than Padfoot every did. The dog walked up to Harry and held up a bleeding paw.

"Oh are you hurt? Do you need help?"

_"Are you daft? Remember how I bonded with you on your 14th birthday. He's trying to bond with you."_

Harry nodded in acknowledgement and let a drop of the dog's blood drop into his mouth. The dog nipped Harry's left arm and licked the drop of blood that welled up. There was the customary flash of light that blinded everybody for a few seconds. A tattoo of a dog appeared on his inner forearm. Great, another tattoo. It looked nice though.

(Think of this in a deep male voice.)

_"Hello Harry. I am pleased to be your familiar. I am a hellhound. Fire is the element that I was born from and is the one I have an affinity to. I can spit fireballs and I can control fire to a certain degree. Hellhounds can flame and shadow travel."_

"You seen very nice." Harry scratched behind the dog's ears. Padfoot liked to be scratched there. The hellhound growled. Harry stopped in fear, did he do something wrong. The hellhound growled again.

_"Don't stop. That felt good."_

Harry looked up at the animal menagerie in his room. Braze was perched next to his pillow, Loreal was preening her feathers on the bedpost and the Doberman was looking at him expectantly.

"You never told me your name."

_"It's Sully."_

"Interesting name."

Sully growled. Harry put up his hands in surrender.

"Sorry. Getting beaten and getting two familiars doesn't help anything."

Braze chuckled,_ "There's more. "_

Loreal added, "_You're going to have to leave this place. The fat males and the horse-woman could have killed you."_

"I can't leave. Dumbledore needs me to be with the Dursleys to keep me safe using blood wards."

Braze muttered profanities. Loreal looked slightly murderous.

_"Harry, look outside of your window." _trilled Loreal.

Harry gave her a puzzled look as he peered the bars of his window. He didn't see anything.

"What am I supposed to see?"

_"You have to use your Mage -sight. Look out of the corner of your eye for the flicker of unusual color. Concentrate on it to activate your Mage-Sight. It'll get easier in time." _replied Loreal.

Harry tried it. He gasped in shock, the world seemed a lot of more color. He looked around at the occupants in the room. Loreal's body was surrounded by flecks of gold. Braze had flames surround his body that were white with blue tinges. He looked like he was in his natural state. Sully looked the same.

_"Mage-sight doesn't work on those who are damned." _ Harry looked at Sully questionably but the hellhound didn't add any more information. Harry looked around, his clock that he got from the rubbish pile was surrounded by blue lightning. Everything else was dull and grey.

"This is amazing."

Braze chuckled in agreement.

Harry looked outside his window again. The usual view of perfect square houses and perfectly trimmed shrubs had changed. The house was now covered by a dome of blood-red. He looked at the dome closely. It was paper-thin and wavered. Harry looked shock as the dome blinked out for a second. That was the blood ward. He hoped that wards didn't usually look like that.

_"I told you. The wards are fragile at best. The Dursley's might kill you the next time they see. I had to deter the really fat human when he tried to come in with a knife."_ interjected Braze.

Harry nodded reluctantly. Where was he supposed to go? Dumbledore would escort him back to this "lovely" place if he went to the Weasley family or any other Light family. Dark families would probably send him back to Dumbledore, in a body bag of course.

"_Merlin gave me the answer to this, pup." _Sully disappeared in a flash of fire and came back with something clutched in his jaws. He dropped it by Harry's hand. Harry picked it up. It was a golden cube. He looked at closer and saw that it was gold from the multiple gold runes that covered in every surface. Hermione would probably know what some of these runes mean. He looked at Sully with a confused look.

_"It activates with blood. Let's leave first." _said Sully.

Harry nodded and looked down. Maybe after he took a shower, he was still covered in blood.

**A/n:** Neville's grandmother's response by using the killing curse will be explained in the next chapter. (If you haven't guessed yet, Neville's still alive.) The voting for pairings will end after the next chapter because the pairings are necessary for the story development. I hope that nobody drops this fic because of a slash pairing or Harry/Hermione pairing. Please stay with the story even if the pairings don't go your way.

Harry/Draco: 9

Harry/Hermione: 4

Harry/Luna: 1

Neville/Hermione:5

Neville/Luna : 5

Somebody reviewed and voted for an alternative pairing for the person who wouldn't be paired up with Neville or Harry. I never planned on letting people vote for that but okay.

**Alternative Pairings**

Luna/Rolf :1

Thanks for the reviews and the suggestions for water familiars. I didn't think I had to say this but I don't like flames especially on the sexual orientation of any character. I'm not going to choose the pairings the readers do.


	5. Injuries

**Chapter 5**

August 3,1994

Augusta Longbottom screamed in shock as the green light that signified the killing curse hit her grandson between the eyes. Neville was flung back into the wall and hit his head with a sickeningly crunch. The nundu was limping towards Neville, probably to finish him off. Ms. Longbottom wavered between finishing off the nundu or hoping against hope that Neville still had a pulse. She rushed towards her grandson with her wand out and cast the shield spell, Protego, as she touched Neville's wrist and searched for a pulse.

Violet was limping towards Neville with a purpose. All beings have a magical core, those who couldn't do magic had smaller cores and their cores replenished slower than magical beings. All beings also need their magical core to survive. Contrary to the muggle belief, cell reproduction and healing were because of magic, without it the being would slowly die as their cells died off. Wizards live longer because their magical core is large enough to counteract the increasing rates at which the cells die off. The magical core was tied to the heart so the magic can hitch a ride on blood to get through the body. If either one was destroyed, the other would immediately shut down as well. Vampires drank blood because their heart didn't pump blood anymore, so they needed to magic in the blood to keep their body alive. The killing curse was nothing but concentrated death magic created from hate intense enough for wanting somebody to die. When the curse hit a living thing, the death magic diffused into the body. The death magic drained the veins of all the magic and went for the magical core. The morbid process takes less than a second. When it reached the core, the death magic drains the core completely and shuts it down. Without a core and a heart to pump blood, all blood flow stops and so does breathing. All indicators of life stop but the victim is alive for about half a minute for all brain functions cease as well. Of course, Violet didn't know this but she did know Neville was still alive. Her familiar bond would have shattered and the lack of Neville's mental presence in her mind would have driven her insane. Right now Neville's mental presence was dormant but it was still there. She was going to use her breath to try and restore his magical core before it shut down, but she encountered an invisible wall blocking her way. Violet snarled in anger. She needed to get to him. Nundus were highly magical. They had close ties to the earth and could utilize earth magic. That's why she was a perfect familiar for an Earth Elemental Wizard. They couldn't access it on command but in times of need they might be able to use it. Violet growled and gathered the magic her body and viciously attacked the shield .

Madame Longbottom gasped as her Protego shield suddenly shattered. She looked up from trying to feel Neville's pulse and stared at the only other occupant in the room. The nundu looked back at her and roared in anger. She tried to raise her wand to fire off an overpowered Colenso spell again but, Violet used magic the second time in her life and threw the witch across the room where Augusta fell into unconsciousness. Violet padded quietly towards an unmoving Neville and gently exhaled on his body. She stared at the unmoving body and tried again.

Neville opened his eyes. Heaven looked suspiciously like his room back at Longbottom Manor, and Violet must have died too because she was here too. His head ached something fierce as well. He slowly tried to stand up and put his hand on Violet to steady himself.

"Violet, are we in heaven?"

Violet mentally chuckled and let out a toothy grin.

_"You're still alive, silly. You survived the green light." _

Neville looked at her disbelievingly, only Harry could survive that curse and continued to scan his room in "heaven." It looked exactly the way he left it, right down to the vase-shaped hole in his wall. He gasped as he saw his grandmother slumped against the wall opposite to the one with the hole in it. Neville rushed over to his grandmother's side and gently felt her wrist. Thank Merlin, she was alive. Or was she dead, this was an odd representation of heaven after all. He always expected clouds and lots of white and gold. He went to his bathroom and got a glass full of water from the tap. Plumbing seemed to work in heaven too, his familiar never lied, maybe he didn't die. He went to splash water on her face. Neville sighed in relief as Madame Longbottom slowly woke up.

Augusta Longbottom sputtered awake. Who dared splash water on her face? The memories came back to her and she frantically patted the ground for her wand. The nundu was going to kill her. She opened her eyes and stared into Neville's brown eyes.

"Nev? You're okay?"

She reached over and pulled him into a hug. Nev almost died, she saw the killing curse she cast for the damned nundu hit him. She sobbed and thanked whatever deities were watching over him. Nobody but Harry had ever survived that but somehow Nev survived it. Augusta never wanted to hurt Neville but her brother convinced her that dropping Neville off the third story was a good way to see if the boy was a squib or not. She never knew her brother wanted to do things like that. He was usually a gentleman who was very kind and polite, but when Neville was there, her brother could match the devil in malice. Neville never showed any more signs of magic after that night. She would so depressed that her Frank's little boy was so deficient in magic. Neville reminded her of both Frank and Alice in everything he did so she tried to stay as far as away emotionally and physically from his as possible so she could try and forgot that her son and his wife were vegetables at St. Mungo's. It worked, sort of. The pain she felt was now dull but getting cut with a dull axe repeatedly hurt just as much as it did with a sharp one.

Neville found himself dragged into a hug the moment his grandmother woke up, or rather the second moment after she tried to find her wand. This was the most positive emotion his grandmother had ever shown in the past 13 years of his life. It's not that he didn't like it, he loved his grandmother but she was always so intimidating. He awkwardly returned the hug. Well wasn't this a day of firsts: his first hug, his first familiar, the first Avada Kedavra aimed at him, the first time he survived one and the first time a spell went right for him. His grandmother released him with tears in her eyes.

"I'm okay, Gran."

Neville felt warm on the inside when his grandmother smiled and hugged him again. He connected the warm feelings to emotions and dismissed it as something good. Violet decided to make her grand entrance and gently nuzzled Neville. Ms. Longbottom screamed in shock and tried to curse the nundu with her...wand. Oh crap, she couldn't find that. The moments before the killing curse hit Neville ran through her mind. Neville protected the nundu with his body, and got close enough to the nundu's breath without dying. Something was different about this nundu. She read that it took a hundred specially trained wizards to injure and subdue a nundu. Just one witch, her of course, managed to injure the nundu without sustaining any damage other than a slight headache.

"Neville, do you know this nundu?"

Neville nodded slowly, and scratched Violet's head.

"Gran, this is Violet. She's my...my...um.. familiar." stuttered Neville and showed his grandmother the vine tattoo on his neck, results of the familiar bonding process.

Augusta Longbottom stared at the nundu, Violet, and Neville with shock. Nundu's were very powerful magical animals. If the familiar was a perfect match, a rare thing, they're would be a physical result of the bonding process. The result in Neville's case was a detailed vine tattoo on his neck. That meant Neville wasn't nearly a squib, he was going to be a really powerful wizard to have a nundu as a familiar. She hugged him again.

"Nev, you'll make your parents proud."

Neville would have smiled if the warmth he felt kicked up a notch.

"I feel a lot hotter. Can you turn down the temp..."

Neville collapsed in a heap on the ground. Both of the other occupants stared at each other and tried to be the first person/animal to help him. Before they took another step, both of them hit an dome tinged with green. Violet snarled in anger and pushed some of her earth magic to try and shatter the shield. The wall just absorbed the blow. Augusta snarled in anger as well, shocking Violet who looked at the woman in surprise. Ms. Longbottom searched the ground and found her wand. She cast most aggressive spells she'd ever cast with the most power she'd ever put into her spells. Maybe there would were some Unforgivables in the mix. All of the spells splashed harmlessly against the bright green dome that surrounded Neville. They watched helplessly as Neville lay unconsciousness on the other side of the dome.

The helplessness changed to shock and confusion as vines and rock appeared out of the ground. Oddly enough both the rocks and vines were the same iridescent green as the dome that blocked all access to Neville. The rocks and vines were translucent and started to cover Neville's body. The vines were wrapping around his body and the rocks started to cover to fill in the spaces between the vines. Neville's body was covered in the vines and rocks made from Neville's magic. Violet and Ms. Longbottom continued to watch in confusion as Neville started to levitate. Green waves of magic started to radiate from his body and hit the dome. The dome was bulged slightly with each blow and the green tinge of the dome started to fade. After a few more waves of Neville's magic and the dome started to shatter. Hair-line fractures started to form and the fractures got bigger. Augusta and Violet started to panic. If their combined magic and Unforgivables couldn't pierce the dome and the waves of magic could then they might be in trouble after the dome collapsed. Both of them gathered their magic and reinforced the dome. Augusta's bright red magic and Violet's forest green mixed with the magic in the dome. Their magic fixed the fractures and cracks as they appeared.

#############

Augusta was a powerful witch, not on par with Dumbledore, but a lot above the average witch. She had been directing her magic to fixing the dome for quite some time. The dome was no longer pure bright green but mixed with red and forest green. She was tired. The magic she poured into the dome was exhausting her. She glanced at Violet, who was also looking worse for wear. Violet's leg was still missing a bone but she was still standing and helping the witch that caused the wound. They were bone tired and their reserves were dangerously low, even though Violet had never used magic before and Augusta had never used anything more powerful than a cleaning charm before today. After three hours of putting magic to reinforce the dome, they were glad to stop when both the translucent green rocks and vines disappeared. Neville stop levitated and the dome disappeared as well. Violet quickly limped to Neville's side and licked him awake.

Neville woke up slowly again. This time to a rough sandpaper that was extremely wet being rubbed against his cheek. For the second time day he woke up to Violet's inquisitive purple eyes, not that he didn't like it but being unconscious once was more than enough. He got up to a hug from his grandmother. Wow, being unconsciousness might be a good thing if he got hugs from an usually emotionless grandmother. He hugged back.

"What happened?"

"Nev, you were floating and your body was covered in magic that looked like rocks and vines and there was a dome and you were destroying it with waves of magic and... an...d.." said a very flustered grandmother. He was powerful enough to create a shield to keep a nundu and her out, when he didn't show any signs before this that he had any magic at all. Augusta was smart. She was top of the class in her year and should have been a Ravenclaw if she didn't go to Gryffindor. She married and found a Mr. Longbottom. The man she married was wonderful and she was devastated when he died protecting a group of Hogwarts students in Diagon Alley. Frank was devastated and became an Auror so nobody would have to sacrifice themselves like that. Augusta Longbottom had no choice but became Regent of the Ancient and Noble House of Longbottom when Frank's mind broke under the Cruciatus. She would be Regent and take care of politics and financial matters until Neville came of age. Many people in the Wizengamot now respected and feared her for her wit and skill in playing the politics game. She could think well outside of the box and read in her spare time. She read about this happening before in a book called Fortuna's Grimoire, a rare book with only a few copies in existence. It described a situation where a wizard came into full power on their 17th birthday as well as any magical powers and legacies. There would be magic encasing the wizard or witch and small waves of magic emanating from the person. His birthday was a few days ago, but he exhibited the traits of coming into a person's magical inheritance to an extreme. The Fortuna's Grimoire wrote that the earlier the inheritance the more powerful the wizard, but the inheritance still came on their birthday. Neville's birthday was on July 30 and that was 4 days ago. It didn't add up. She came out of her mental musings to look at Neville with a concerned look.

"You're very powerful, Neville. Remember the grimoire I gave you to read. Your magical inheritance came three years early and not on your birthday. Something's odd about that, though. I'll have to look into it later. "

Neville was inwardly rejoiced at the most words his grandmother spoke to him without insulting him and then he listened to the words she actually spoke. He was outwardly rejoicing, now and had a grin that split his face in two. He wasn't a squib and he was going to be powerful too. He petted Violet and hugged her. The nundu winced in pain as Neville touched her leg. He looked at her and scolded her.

"Violet, you're injured. You should have told us, your leg hurt."

_"It's fine. I had worse when I went on hunts with my brothers."_

Neville scowled angrily. She could have been hurt even more if he hadn't found out about her wound. He cast Episkey, a minor Healing charm, on her leg. This charm was the one he used the most because he got his fair share of cuts and bruises by being clumsy and had to use Episkey to fix himself up. Violet sighed in relief as the pain in her leg subsided and she could move it around. Her breath could heal but her fur easily deflected her breath. She purred in thanks and licked Neville's face.

Augusta was watching in extreme shock. Where was Neville's wand or rather his father's wand? Did he just do Episkey without a wand? Did a minor healing spell heal something a major healing spell couldn't? Why did his inheritance come now? Did the nundu's face just come into contact with Neville's face? Why didn't her breath poison him? Better yet, how was she still alive? Shouldn't Violet's breath already have killed her? She slowly sat down as the questions started to run through her head. Maybe she was getting a bit old for this kind of excitement.

"Neville, why aren't you dead from Violet's breath?" she said gently.

Neville look confused for a few seconds before remembering that Violet was supposed to have breath toxic enough to kill entire villages.

"She doesn't have the toxic breath like the rest of her species. Violet has a breath that helps plants grow and heals. She's different, in a good way of course."

Violet decided to demonstrate and padded quietly to Neville's dittany plant. She exhaled onto the plant and stepped back to watch the results. The dittany was originally a seedling that Neville wanted to keep close to him so he could take care of it better. After Violet exhaled, the plant started to flower and covered the pot in leaves and stems. She looked back at the humans and grinned smugly.

Neville's grandmother nodded in shock. A nundu without toxic breath, that was a first. Ok, concentrate Augusta there's more questions she needed answers to.

"I need to cast diagnostic charms on you. There's something wrong about your inheritance."

Neville nodded reluctantly. Normally he wouldn't let anybody cast any kind of spell on him unless he was unconsciousness. He trusted his grandmother though even though she was usually emotionally cold towards everybody.

She started to cast diagnostic charms. The first one was a simple one that showed the temperature of his body. She moved onto more intensive diagnostic charms. She stopped when her last charm showed her his magical power. It usually gave a number, one being a squib and the higher the number went, the more magical power the wizard had. The spell was widely used because it took into account the regeneration rate of the wizard's magical core. She stopped the spell when the number went into the thousands and continued to climb. Neville must be on par with Merlin. Dumbledore's power was rated at 859 and nobody came close to that number. Then why didn't he show any more magic potential when he was younger. Augusta was almost as paranoid as Mad-Eye Moody after the First War took her husband and the Death Eaters came after her to threaten Frank and Alice from working for the Light side. Truthfully she was just as paranoid during the war with Grindewald, but she would never admit it. She cast another charm that would show magical tampering with Neville's magical core. Augusta gasped in shock as Neville's magical core glowed with remnants of black shackles that were flecked with red. Somebody bound his magical core. Now she was furious. Who dared bind his core like that? If something hadn't loosened it with magic, then his core would be forever stunted. No wonder he was almost a squib. It was a miracle that Neville had survived the three story fall.

Neville and Violet slowly backed away from his grandmother. The air around her was crackling with magic, and her hair was out of its tight bun due to the wind that somehow made it into Longbottom Manor. Neville flinched as the pot near his face exploded into little shards. He didn't know what the spells told her but she seemed to be madder than the time Uncle Algie started to threaten him to give the status of heir of the Ancient and Noble House of Longbottom to Uncle Algie.

_"You're grandmother reeks of magic. Calm her down before her anger destroys this house." _commanded Violet.

Neville immediately rushed to his grandmother's side and gently tapped on her shoulder.

"Gran, what's wrong?"

The words pierced through Augusta's thoughts. She closed her eyes and tried to calm herself down. After a dozen minutes using the Occlumency she learned during the First War, she finally managed to rein her magic in enough so that random items in Neville's room weren't exploding. Augusta quickly cast a spell on the magical signature on the bindings before the bindings were consumed by Neville's magic. To her surprise and shock, a picture of a blond-haired man that she knew well appeared in her mind. It couldn't be. The wind started to pick up again, and the Herbology books on his shelf were vibrating. Neville quickly snapped her out of her thoughts with a reiteration of his question.

"Gran, what's wrong?"

"Neville, there's something I need to tell you."

#############

August 2,1994

Harry was having the most comfortable shower in his whole life. He didn't know whether it was the fact that he was leaving in a few minutes or that he glad to get rid of the blood he was covered in for most of a day. He came out of the shower and toweled off when saw Sully staring at him.

"What are you doing in the bathroom while I'm taking a shower?" asked Harry as he tried to cover as much as his body as possible.

_" I'm guarding you."_

"From what?"

_"The fat short human and the tall horse human." _replied Sully.

"And what were they doing."

_"I don't know."_

"Then why did you chase them away."

_"They had a gun."_

"They were going to shoot me?"

_"Possibly."_

"How did you chase them away?"

_"I growled."_

Wow, Sully didn't like to add details. He just answered his questions as straightforwardly as possible. If it was anybody else, they would be yapping up a storm and asking why his "family" were going to shoot him. Harry scratched behind Sully's ears and said thanks. He quickly dressed into some of Dudley's hand-me-downs. The clothes hung much too loosely from his body. He didn't need to wear glasses anymore, not that he had any to wear anymore. His glasses were the first to break when his uncle and cousin hit him. His ribs and arms were the next. After each familiar bonded with him, he felt different, better. He made a note to ask Merlin about it the next time he saw him. Harry cleaned up the bathroom and tried to walk back to his room to try out the device Sully brought for him when he heard a clicking sound. Harry turned around and saw Dudley and Aunt Petunia standing behind him with a gun.

Dudley was holding up a gun with both hands and pointing it at Harry. Both of them had murderous looks on their faces. Harry noted the lack of his uncle who he knew would never be away from a moment like this.

"What do you want, Dudders? Are you moving up from stealing and decided that murdering is more fun? " said Harry, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

"Don't talk to my precious cupcake like that. Dudley is a sweet young man whose only fault is having too much generosity." yelled Aunt Petunia.

Harry snorted. Getting beat up and having three familiars really helps your confidence.

" Are you sure Aunt Petunia? Ask your "little" boy whether he's been taking money from the neighborhood kids? See if he's been smoking and ask him who vandalized 10 Privet Drive. " accused Harry.

His aunt looked at Dudley.

"Is this true Dudders?"She looked at him with her sternest glare, which in Harry's opinion had never been turned on Dudley before.

Dudley started to sweat and he said in shaky voice.

"N-n-no, mummy. The f-f-freak is l-lying." stuttered Dudley.

"How dare you, Dudley Dursley. I raised you better than this. I gave you everything you ever wanted yet you still steal from kids younger than you and you wrote very nasty things on Mrs. Veronica's wall. If she found out you did it, your father might not get the promotion he wanted. Mrs. Veronica's husband is very rich and famous . I'm ashamed of you." scolded Aunt Petunia.

Harry chuckled. This was a lot funnier being on the other side of the lecture. Both of them turned towards Harry when they heard him chuckle. Oops, looks like I reminded them about why they're up here in the first place.

"Look mummy, the freak was trying to get us to argue by telling lies about me so he can get away."

Aunt Petunia looked at Harry and then Dudley.

"We'll talk about this after we take care of my sister's pathetic son." she said to Dudley. She turned to Harry and said, "As for you, how dare one of your freakish pets hurt my husband. He was only trying to teach Dudley some boxing tricks with a live demonstration. He's in the hospital right now getting treated for his burns and poor Dudders here got a burn on his hand so bad he had stay home from school. Do you know what the neighbors will say?" How odd that Vernon got a full body burn while he was at home. I wonder what's going on behind the doors of 4 Privet Drive". I'm going to be the gossip of the street. I won't dare show my face out in public now that you did that, you miserable excuse for a human. Even later in the future, my friends will comment on how odd it was that Vernon got so badly burnt. I bet even freaks like you still think you're a freak. My sweet boy here now has to be the man of the house until Vernon gets better, so he going to take the place of his father to make sure that doesn't happen again."

Harry really hadn't heard that much BS since Fudge's speech about why he put Dementors at Hogwarts. Funny, how his aunt was a bit more concerned about her public image than the fact that her husband was being treated for second and third degree burns. Dudley seemed to fine too. There wasn't even a band-aid on his hand and Braze said he turned down the heat for the "child" because Braze didn't make it a habit to injure children. Dudley was advancing slowly towards Harry with the gun still pointed at him.

"You're going to get it now freak. Mummy am I allowed to shoot the freak now?"

"Yes Duddykins, just make sure you're careful and don't kill him too fast. Ok sweetie."

Dudley nodded and pointed the gun towards Harry's left leg. Dudley fired the whole clip at Harry's leg. Harry watched in shock as his cousin actually pressed the trigger. The shock changed to horror as he saw the bullets exit the barrel of the Walter PPK. The horror changed to confusion as he watched the bullets make the way towards his leg. He thought bullets were supposed to move faster than the eye can blink but now he was watching them travel just as slow as the attempts Dudley made at punching him.

_"You're getting shot at."_

Harry completely forgot about Sully. The hellhound was quiet during the entire confrontation.

_"Sully, how do I avoid getting shot in the leg?"_

_"Move."_ said Sully.

Harry was about to object when he saw that the bullets were almost to their destination. He quickly moved his leg an inch of the path of the bullets. He watched in fascination as the bullets impacted into the carpeted floor in slow motion. Time sped and Harry found everything to be back to normal. That was crazy.

"Mom, the freak isn't hurt. Did I miss?"

"Yes, try again sweetie. It's okay. The freak can't run out of this house or that old freak will bring him back."

Dudley slowly fumbled with the gun trying to eject the cartridge to load another round. Harry was definitely not going to stay for the second round of target practice. He wasn't sure the time slowing thing would kick back in or not. He rushed to his small room and closed the door. The locks were on the outside but he knew magic or kind of. The most advanced locking charm he knew at the moment was the sticking charm. He quickly cast it onto the handle of the door causing it to remain stuck in that position. He needed a better solution but he couldn't think of any. He turned to the other three occupants of the room.

"Um anybody know how to lock a door using magic." he said, flushing with embarrassment.

_"Good job, Harry. You went into the only room with 3 deadbolts, 2 chain-locks, 3 padlocks, and a knob lock that all happen to be on the outside of your door." _commented Braze.

"Hey I could unlock the door with magic."

_"Just like you can do magic to lock the door right?" _

"_Be nice, Braze." _trilled Loreal. She turned up the heat of her magical aura and directed it towards the door. She directed her burning aura to door and fused the frame of the door with the door. _"That should do it."_

"What did you just do?"

_"I can change the heat of my magical aura and direct it towards whatever I want to hit. I fused the door into the frame. Your cousin will not be able to get in unless he removes a large part of your wall."_

"Thanks, Loreal." Harry stroked her crest feathers.

"Ok, I think I should try out the cube Sully brought me." Harry gently bit his finger until he drew blood. He smeared blood on one side of the cube. He gasped in shock as...nothing happened.

"Sully, why didn't it work?"

_"Smear blood on all the runes."_

Harry sighed and let Braze nip his thumb hard. He started to smear blood on all the runes on the cube. He sighed as he started to feel light-headed from the blood loss. The cube seemed a lot larger when you had to smear blood all over it. Why did he have to smear blood on ALL the runes? Why couldn't he just say a code-phrase or something? He was sure he going to pass out when he finally smeared blood on the last rune. The runes started to glow golden and started to vibrate in his hand. The cube started to vibrate faster until Harry's whole body started to vibrate. Harry's view of his small bedroom was slowly replaced with a circular golden room.

"Welcome to Merlin's Tower, Harry."

#############

**A/n**Ok there is another chapter, took a while too. Neville and Harry are both going to be a part of each chapter until Hogwarts.

**ROBERT-19588**: On the subject of Hedwig. She'll be in the story still, but I wondering if she should stay a post-owl who's intelligent or should she turn into a different magical animal. Either way she'll still be one of Harry's familiar. I would like the reviews but it wouldn't exactly show how many readers voted for each one. Since you reviewed three times I guess I'll count your vote twice. Just this once.

**jessirose85**: No need to be sorry. Thanks for the idea of giving Luna a back-plan just in case she doesn't get to be with Neville. Thanks for the reviews though.

**Harry/Draco:**10

**Harry/Hermione:**7

**Harry/Luna:**1

**Neville/Luna:**6

**Neville/Hermione:**6

Alternative Pairings:

**Luna/Rolf:**1

Once again flames are unappreciated. Reviews are still appreciated. Anybody who can guess who bound Neville's core gets brownie points.(Hint=It's not Dumbledore). More plot twists ahead.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6-Tutors**

Warnings: swearing, a bit of violence, mentions of death and torture, sexual innuendos

Disclaimer: Guess what? I own Harry Potter now. Just kidding. J.K Rowling still does and won't let anyone else have it so I don't own anything from the Harry Potter Universe not even a flobberworm.

Story Recommendation:

**Partially Kissed Hero by Perfect Lionheart. **

That is actually one of the best HP stories on . It's about 102 chapters long filled with about every piece of mythology and magic in existence along with tons of new stuff. The story is sort of funny. I highly recommend you to read it, one of the best stories ever.

#############

Previously

_The words pierced through Augusta's thoughts. She closed her eyes and tried to calm herself down. After a dozen minutes using the Occlumency she learned during the First War, she finally managed to rein her magic in enough so that random items in Neville's room weren't exploding. Augusta quickly cast a spell on the magical signature on the bindings before the bindings were consumed by Neville's magic. To her surprise and shock, a picture of a blond-haired man that she knew well appeared in her mind. It couldn't be. The wind started to pick up again, and the Herbology books on his shelf were vibrating. Neville quickly snapped her out of her thoughts with a reiteration of his question._

_"Gran, what's wrong?"_

_"Neville, there's something I need to tell you."_

August 3,1994 (Late Afternoon)

"There's a reason why your magical inheritance came late. Somebody bound your magical core with a magical seal. The seal blocked your magical core from growing. It's a wonder how you managed to keep with the other students during your third year. When your magical inheritance came, the sudden expansion of your core strained the magical bindings. The magical bindings couldn't take the strain and they broke." Augusta explained.

"Who put the binding on me?" asked Neville.

She wouldn't tell him who put the binding. Even she wasn't sure how that man got near Neville. Augusta hated that man with a passion. For that matter nobody really liked him. She needed t o check on a few things before she'll tell anybody about the identity of the person who bound Neville's core.

"It can wait until you're older. " she said.

Neville pouted but Augusta ignored him. With Neville having a larger core and magical ability, she needed somebody to teach Neville the magic he missed during his first three years. Nobody from the Ministry of course. Fudge would try to curry favor with the Longbottom family by trading tutoring services for her vote in the next Ministry election. Being in any kind of debt didn't sit well with her. She hummed in deep thought as she mentally separated the ass-kissers who wanted favor from her and the people she could trust with Neville's tutoring. The list of people she had after sorting was surprisingly short. She didn't socialize often after the torture of her son and his wife. She quickly discounted several people for their ability in magic was mediocre at best. After that the list of about 10 people turned into a measly one person. Now how was she going to contact him?

Her thoughts were interrupted by a constant waving motion in from of her face.

"Hello, anybody in there? Hello?"

"What is it?" snapped Augusta.

"S-s-sorry, G-G-Gran" stuttered Neville, reverting back into his shy, low self-esteem persona.

Augusta Longbottom saw the damage her emotional distance to Neville did. Her condescending manner towards him as an effort to drive him away from her failed miserably. She only meant to keep him away from her so maybe she could spend some time without being reminded of Frank and Alice's sacrifice every time he spoke or every time he made an movement. She now saw the low self-esteem and non-existent confidence. She didn't know how to deal with this. Maybe the tutoring with Moody would cure him of his low self-esteem. She petted Neville's back awkwardly.

"There's nothing to be sorry about. I'm not used to that kind of behavior. I was just thinking about the tutor I'm going to get you." she said gently.

"Tutor? "

"Yes, Neville. With your magical core finally back to normal, you need to learn how to control it or Hogwarts might be leveled to the ground if you can't control one of the fourth year spells. There's a man who I think might be a good tutor. He'll teach you how to survive a Death attack as well."

She never thought Voldemort was dead. If there was body that was corporal enough for her to cast cutting hexes at, she would finally believe that He-Who-Was-Not-Be-Named would be dead. Neville on the other hand wasn't thinking such dark thoughts. He was ecstatic, a person who would personally teach him magic, and he would be strong enough to cast them. Neville happily tackled Violet who was sleeping by the fireplace.

_"Neville, I'm trying to get some sleep."_

"I know, but I'm getting a magical tutor, isn't that great Violet."

_"Yes, yes it's amazing, but I'm tired from using magic. I need sleep."_

"Ok, fine. Kill joy." Neville stuck his tongue out at Violet whose only reaction was to loudly yawn and fall back to sleep. Neville was still too happy to care. Augusta gently pried him off Violet's back and put Neville back on his bed.

"Neville, listen here. The man I'm getting you to be your tutor will be rough and will push you very hard, but remember that it is for your own good. If he pushes you to point of injury, you must tell me. That's not acceptable. I'm going to go on a little trip to go ask him to be your tutor. I'll be back within a few hours." she said.

Augusta walked out of Neville's room and trudged down the seven flights of staircases. Someday she'll have to get a Charms Master to install a moving staircase like the ones at Hogwarts. She huffed and puffed until she finally managed to reach the apparition point located in the side building on the outer edge of the main wards. The building had only one room but it was quite a large room. The building itself was heavily warded but it wasn't covered by the main wards of Longbottom manor. Neville planted Devil's Snare and some of his most dangerous plants along the path that lead to the building. Wards blocked the plants from encroaching on the path but anybody who strayed from the path was left to the mercies of the plants. She went into the building and activated the small fireplace she used for communication. She called out an address and put her head in. After a few minutes of talking she pulled her head out of the fireplace, spun on her heel and Apparated away with a small pop.

With another small pop she appeared at least two miles away from the house of the tutor. She had to make sure the tutor had time to prepare for her arrival. The man was quite paranoid. Augusta pulled out a small broom the size of a toy out her pocket and un-shrunk it. She hopped onto the broom and started to ride it towards the house. She liked to ride booms the old aristocrat style, with both legs on one side. She put a hand on the back of the broom and a hand on the front to steady herself. The broom flew steadily and quickly along the small beaten road towards a house in the middle of nowhere.

After a few minutes of steady flying, she finally caught side of the house. If she didn't know better than she would have thought he was a horrible landscape manager. There was nothing in a 2000 feet radius from the house. There were a dense thicket of trees and rocks completely surrounding the house only a few yards away. There would garden gnomes and pink flamingos spread out all over the area. She stopped her broom when the tree line ended. She gently got off and waited. A man opened the door of the house and stepped out.

"You're keyed into the wards for the next few minutes. Better hurry or the wards will fry you if you don't make it in time." he yelled out.

Augusta swore and put a leg on each side of the broom with both hands in front. She started to fly at the fastest speed her Nimbus 2001 could fly. The broom could fly up to 150 m/s and she was quite the chaser during her Hogwart's years. She sped through across the garden gnome and flamingo infested ground. She dodged a particularly happy gnome with a green hat and careened past a pink flamingo. After a minute of hard flying and dodging she finally landed in front of the man. He pointed his wand at her.

"Good job, Augusta. Nice flying. Last test then I'll let you in. What do the flamingos do?"

Augusta sighed, " The flamingos have Reducto curses that activate on touch. After touched the curses spread outwards and will probably kill the person who touched it."

"Correct. You know too much though. How do I know you're really who you say you are?"

She sighed again," You were in the Order of the Phoenix and comforted me when you brought the news about Frank and Alice. Surprisingly you didn't do such a bad job about the comforting."

The man finally lowered his wand and gestured for her to get inside. Augusta ignored the compulsion to stick her head in the garbage bin and continued to walk towards the door. This time she ignored another compulsion to stand under one of wind chimes. She walked into the house and looked around. The house looked to be the same size as it was on the outside. Most wizards used space enlargement charms after buying a house. The house was spartan with no extra pictures or decorations. It had all the furniture she would have expected in a normal house. The man went into the kitchen a got a glass of pumpkin juice and a bottle of Firewhiskey. He handed the pumpkin juice to Augusta and took a seat across from her.

"So what brings you here to my house, Augusta. I was going to see Dumbledore about some magical pit-traps today but you wanted to talk to me. I know that you don't make house calls just to be social."

"I'm here to ask to come out of retirement. Neville needs a tutor and I see no better person to teach him magic. Would you do it.?

The man mulled it over and took a sip of his firewhiskey. Retirement was boring so far. He was so positive some kind of dark wizard would try to kill him now that he was retired but no such luck. Dumbledore asked him to be the teacher for the Defense Against the Dark Arts. He took the job out of sheer boredom. He heard the Potter kid got into trouble with Voldemort every year thus far and decided that being in the same castle as Potter should prove to be exciting. He just had to wait another month before the excitement could begin. Augusta now gave him a chance to have some fun at the expense of her grandson before the school year. Then he could torture the kid some more during the school year. Maybe a few fifty laps around the lake. He would teach him of course but he took a sadistic kind of pleasure out of watching his students squirm and whine when he gave them an impossible task to do. He would then kick back and watch the fun. The wards at Longbottom Manor were extremely strong, some of the best in the world, he would like to see his dark wizard stalkers to try and get past them. He might be able to sleep easy in that place.

"Okay, but I'll have to teach Neville on my terms not yours. I'll also need a warded room for me to sleep in and a large room for us to train in. I'm bringing my personal elf to prepare food and clean my room. My elf is going to get food from the market himself. He'll need money to buy the food. There can't be any guests that I haven't personally checked over and made sure they are who they say they are. Got it?"

Augusta nodded. She mentally prepared a checklist for her to do when she went home. She was actually quite glad that he agreed. The man was good enough that the Ministry should have never let him out of retirement. The Aurors he trained lived longer and captured more criminals than the other Aurors. Neville would have a heck of a time training under Alastor Moody.

A loud blaring shocked Augusta out of her seat and she spilled pumpkin juice on her robe.

"Merlin, what was that?" screamed Augusta.

Moody flicked his wrist and his wand appeared in his hand. He cast Scourgify on Augusta's robe to clean it and looked out the window.

"That was the first proximity alarm. Somebody or some people are out there. I'll activate the permanent sticking charm on the grounds. The path will be the only place safe. Pull out your own wand, Augusta. Some excitement is finally here."

"Maybe it's only an animal or a muggle." she said, pulling out her wand reluctantly.

"No, the wards repel animals and muggles. The wards start at the end of the barren land and at the beginning of the trees near my property. We'll wait for them after the wards and traps thin them out. We'll spring an ambush and capture the survivors. " he cackled madly.

"What if they're innocent?"

"No wizard or witch is innocent, Augusta. There's only degrees of guilt. If they had good intentions then they'll stay on the path. If not, then I have the right to subdue and kill any survivors who escape the traps."

Augusta was about to reprimand him for being overly paranoid towards visitors towards his house, when she heard an explosion outside.

"What was that?" she demanded.

Moody cast a charm that showed him his defenses. He peered at it and pointed at a garden gnome on the edge of the path.

"Looks like happy gnome #10 just released its Reducto curse. I guess my visitors don't have such good intentions after all. Prepare for an ambush, Augusta. "

##(Point-Of-View Change)##

Bartemius Crouch Jr. was crouching behind a large rock along with twelve others. He knew that these eleven were loyal to the Dark Lord but none of them were Inner Circle members but some of them might be Inner Circle material. The last one was Peter Pettigrew. The man was a complete wimp but since he brought Voldemort's soul to them, he was ordered to accompany them on this mission. His goal was to infiltrate Hogwarts to bring the Potter boy to Voldemort. He needed to get the boy to the graveyard near his master's manor. Voldemort wanted the capture to be dramatic as possible. His plan was to whisk the boy away during the Tri-wizard tournament just as the boy was about to win. His master needed him to masquerade as a teacher in order to give Harry the guidance he needed to win. The other teachers were teaching long enough for their personalities to be remembered by the students, any change in personality would send warning bells ringing and his cover would be blown. His only option was to go for the Defense Against the Dark Arts position. It was the worst luck possible for him that Dumbledore gave the job to Alastor Moody, the grizzled retired Auror that struck in fear into the hearts of criminals everywhere. Now he had to capture Moody and impersonate him using Polyjuice. Moody was in his house right now. He waved his hand and the rest of the Death Eaters moved forward.

The Death Eaters moved onto the barren strip of land towards the house. The first Death Eater took one step towards the house and remained rooted to that position.

"What's wrong with you? Move before he finds us." urgently whispered Crouch Jr.

"I can't. I'm stuck to the ground. Finite Incantatem. Finite Incantatem."

The random Death Eater #1 was frantically trying to free himself. A second Death Eater tried to free him but when he moved to get closer he was stuck too. Peter saw how both of them were stuck. If he got himself stuck then he wouldn't have to fight Moody. He walked over to the stuck Death Eaters and pretended to help. He was sure to get stuck. When he moved his feet to show that he was stuck, his feet actually moved. That sucked. He looked down and saw that his feet were on a small beaten path. Peter tried to get off the path and get stuck before anybody noticed. Too late.

"Look, Peter isn't stuck. It seems like the path isn't trapped. Everybody walk on the path." commanded Crouch Jr.

The remaining 9 Death Eaters who weren't stuck followed his orders and started to walk on the path with their wands drawn. Crouch and Pettigrew followed close after with their wands out. They walked along the small path single file warily waiting for Moody to attack them. One of Death Eaters saw a happy green garden gnome with a shovel in its hand.

"Wow, Moody must be even crazier that everybody else thought. Look he's got garden gnomes and flamingos everywhere. " said the Death Eater and poked the garden gnome with his wand. The garden gnome immediately exploded and let loose with the multiple Reducto curses that were spelled into the wood. The Death Eater who poked it fell down with a large portion of his chest missing. The two people beside him also lost portions of their chest and arms. Barty cursed as he saw another three of his team out of commission even before they even saw a glimpse of Moody. He was down to 7 people including him and the rat, Pettigrew.

The Death Eaters walked with even more caution as they resisted poking the garden gnomes and flamingos. Peter had accidently knocked one of the Death Eaters into a pink flamingo and the Death Eater took all the Reducto curses to the chest. Peter backed away from the body in shock as he looked through the gaping hole in the man's chest.

"Quit fooling around Pettigrew. We've lost 7 men even before we duel with Alastor Moody" growled Crouch.

Crouch raised his wand and started to unravel the many wards. The cursebreaker in the team managed not to die and helped Crouch disable the wards. Barty pushed Pettigrew forward to test if the wards were active. When Peter looked fine, the rest of the group walked the rest of the way towards the house. Crouch sighed in relief as the group made it to the house before losing anybody else. As he walked up the staircase, he had the oddest feeling to stick his head in the garbage bin. Years of resisting the Dementor's aura finally paid off as he shouldered off the compulsion. Before he could warn anybody else, one of the woman rushed to the bin and stuck her head in. She screamed in shock as the rest of her body was sucked in. Peter paled as he heard the woman screaming to be let out and pounding against the walls of the garbage bin.

The 5 remaining members of the once proud 13 Death Eaters reached the front porch. They lost another man to a compulsion to stand under a wind chime. When the man stood under the wind chime, spells was released from the wind chime. A quick succession of stunning spells, Incarcerous, and Petrificus Totalus hit the man. The Death Eater collapsed under the combined spells and fell forward into a garbage bin. The remaining four Death Eaters visibly paled and they took a collective step backwards. Barty gestured towards the cursebreaker and they destroyed the door and the remaining wards on it. They dove into the house and took a defensive stance.

##(Point-Of-View Change)##

Augusta was crouched behind a couch along with Moody, bemoaning her aching back. Moody was concentrating on the holographic map his wand was projecting. Moody was chuckling as various icons on his map started to blink rapidly.

"What does the blinking mean?"inquired Augusta.

"They show which of my traps have been activated. I see one of the intruders followed the compulsion to stick their head in the garbage bin. I'll have to question that one later. Oh, joy I thought my wind chimes would never be tested out. It worked perfectly. Another prisoner to interrogate, this is fun." Moody cackled madly again.

"Where are your wards? Shouldn't they have kicked in by now?"

"There are wards but the wards are pretty weak, some of them are only alarms and do basically nothing. I'm pretty sure you can take the wards if you wanted to. Besides, what use would there be waiting for Death Eaters to come and get you if they all get killed by the wards." explained Moody.

"What about the time when you said the wards would fry me if I didn't get into your house?" demanded Augusta.

"Oh, that. Well, I just wanted to test your flying skills. At worst the wards would have gave you a static shock. I wanted to test if you are really Augusta Longbottom." said Moody still staring at the holographic map.

Augusta was about to start a long-winded rant about how foolish his behavior was when Moody put waved a hand for her to shut up. How dare he tell her to be quiet? After he could have killed her with that little "lie" about the wards frying her if she didn't hurry. What would happen if she accidently ran into a garden gnome? She was about to continue anyway when she heard the door open or rather got destroyed. Moody grinned and held up a hand. Augusta was about to ask what the hand was for when she saw him slowly put down a finger, and after a few minutes another finger, then another and another. As the last finger went down, Moody sprang up from behind the couch. Augusta was a bit behind him with her wand drawn out ready to greet the visitors.

##(Point-Of-View Change)##

Barty Crouch was the first into the house followed by the remaining two Death Eaters and Peter Pettigrew followed way back behind them. The three of them already inside the house cast Protego to block the curses that were sure to come when they walked in. After seeing no curses being flown, Peter walked in slowly.

"I-I-I g-g-guess t-t-that h-he isn't h-h-here." stammered Peter as he slowly tried to back out.

"Quiet rat. He's obviously hiding in one of the rooms waiting to ambush us. We'll search the house for him. If he isn't here than we'll ambush him." said Barty.

The Death Eaters dropped their shields after hearing that and prepared to look through the house. Peter was still slowly backing out and he almost made it to the end of the front porch before Random Death Eater #3 noticed him and dragged Peter back with a summoning spell.

"Come back here. We're already 9 men short. We need all the help we can get even it's some rat."

Barty nodded in agreement and walked into the living room. The words "Not here" were on the tip of his tongue as Moody burst out from behind the couch with his wand drawn. The Death Eaters started in shock as Madame Longbottom quickly followed Moody from behind the couch. They had all heard stories about Augusta Longbottom who placed first in her year during a dueling tournament. What was impressive about that was that the Aurors stationed there was a goodwill gesture from the Ministry participated in the event as well. They lost to the witch easily. Moody would be a tough opponent but Lady Longbottom could be as well. The Death Eaters all dove out of the way from the first salvo of curses from the witch and wizard. Peter disappeared with a crack leaving three Death Eaters to deal with the most feared Auror in history and the most respected Pureblood lady in the Wizengamot.

Barty quickly fired off killing curses and Crucios at the pair while the other two did the same. Augusta conjured pieces of rock to intercept the curses. In-animate non-living conjurations were the easiest conjurations to do. Moody smiled in happiness as he did a spell chain he invented. Spell chains were normally spells linked together where with the wand movements at the end of a spell led to the beginning of the next spell. Moody's spell chains were different. He had longed mastered the art of wordless casting and something he liked to call jabbing. With a jab of his wand he could cast a spell without the fancy wand movements they taught at Hogwarts. Apparently they called this technique elimination of wand movements casting officially. Since it had absolutely no creativity and much too wordy, Moody invented his own name for the technique, jabbing. Moody jabbed his wand at the Death Eater on the right who happened to be Random Death Eater #3. Jets of colorful lights flew out from his wand. Moody nodded in satisfaction as Bone Breaking Curses, stunning spells, a Jelly Legs jinx and a cleverly disguised tracking charm hidden among the other spells. You know, just in case the man survived long enough to escape. Random Death Eater #3 tried to raise a shield but the multiple curses shattered the hastily erected shield and the man screamed as his skull fractured. Augusta just cast school-yard jinxes at Random Death Eater #6 who thought that the Protego Charm would block them. The jinxes had a low enough power that they slipped through the shield and hit the Death Eater. The Death Eater yelped as the jinxes took effect. His front teeth grew to enormous proportions and his body started to develop a rash. He was so occupied with the changes that he didn't notice the Diffindo, the Severing spell, that cut through his throat. The spell lived to its name as it severed the spinal cord on its way out from the man's body. Barty found himself alone.

"You'll both pay for this. The Dark Lord will make you pay."

Barty cast an Expulso, the Exploding curse, on the ground. Both Moody and Augusta cast Protego to block the debris from hitting them. Moody cast a Stunning spell towards Barty's direction to find that the Death Eater was no longer there.

"Damn he got away."

Augusta smiled grimly as she killed the Death Eater, who was moaning in pain from multiple skull fractures, out of mercy. Magic may be able to heal wounds ordinary means couldn't but the brain and skull were areas even magic couldn't properly heal. At best, the Death Eater might become a vegetable.

"So, now that this is out the way. Please pack your belongings and anything you want to take with you. We're leaving from this place immediately. It wouldn't do to have Neville's tutor to be killed before he even starts tutoring. "

Moody nodded but his face took on a begging expression, something that was quite scary.

"Please can we interrogate the Death Eaters in the garbage bin. Pretty please with chocolate frogs on top."

"Fine, but hurry up. I don't like hearing screams."

Moody grinned like Christmas came early. A few minutes later screams started to echo through the house as Augusta kneaded her temples to let relieve some stress. A man started to yell "No not there." then she heard a very manly high-pitched scream. Moody walked back in with a Cheshire Cat grin on his face.

"The woman didn't speak so I disposed of her body. The man on the other hand didn't speak at first, but after I decided to trim his broomstick off then he decided to talk. That man who escaped was Barty Crouch Junior. Apparently He-who-Must-Not-Be-Named wants Harry for some reason and needed somebody to infiltrate the castle as me. Quite an ingenious plan, really. Barty was to insert Harry's name into the Goblet of Fire so Harry had to compete in the Tri-wizard tournament. The Polyjuice me was to guide him so he would win. The trophy would be a portkey and Harry would be whisked away to Voldemort's hideaway. "

Augusta gasped," We need to get these Death Eaters to the Aurors so they can be put into Azkaban."

"Sorry. The Death Eater only talked after I cut his broomstick. I think he bled out a few minutes back, can't be helped. The others are in various stages of death. We can only go talk to Dumbledore and hope he can up the security for the tournament. That's about all a grizzled retired Auror can do. Now let's go to Longbottom Manor. I want to get settled in before training your grandson."

Moody waved his wand and his belongings started to pack themselves into his trunk. After he finished packing, he shrunk his trunk and put it into his pocket.

"I think we can Apparate. You'll have to Side-Along Apparate me though. I don't know where your apparition point is."

Augusta nodded and grabbed Moody's arm. She spun on her heel and disappeared with a loud crack.

#############

August 3,1994 (Late Afternoon)

Harry turned to see Merlin behind him. Merlin wore a simple black robe and black boots.

"Where were you?" demanded Harry, the moment he saw Merlin.

"I'm made of magic so I need magic to survive. I'm also tied to this cube and my magical foci. If I'm away from either of those for too long, my form will disintegrate. I'm no use to without a form." explained Merlin, "If I could have been there, I could only be a spectator. I cannot touch anything or anybody except for you, a failsafe the real Merlin built into me so you couldn't abuse the power of having a helper whose invisible to others."

Harry nodded. Those were all good reasons but he thought Merlin had abandoned him for pure personal reasons. He was used to rejection. Dudley bullied other kids to stay away from him. Once, a kid that was new to the neighborhood played with Harry when he was 8. The family moved a few days later after Dudley beat up the kid bad enough to be put in the hospital. His only defense was "The freak made me do it." Harry was punished badly after that. In the wizarding world, it was the same. After the newspaper called him the Dark Lord in Training, everybody but Hermione and Ron stayed away from him, even Ron was warier around Harry.

"We only have less than 30 days to train you until you return to Hogwarts. Then you're on your own. If you manage to survive, then I'll continue to train you if you need more training. I hope that I'll be able to give you enough of a foundation so you can train on your own. Having your body in a coma-like state while I train you isn't the world's safest option." continues Merlin.

"WHAT?" yelled Harry, " I'm not in the real Merlin's Tower. This is just in my mind!"

"Actually yes. Training you was my main objective. Giving you Merlin's knowledge is my secondary mission. The Cube is the only way I can interact with you on for extended periods of time. The Cube is actually one of Merlin's greatest inventions. Since you smeared blood over all of the runes, you've managed to tie yourself to the cube with blood and magic. Everything you learn here can be used in reality just like you can in your mind. In this case, thinking isn't easier than doing. All the changes in your body will also reflect the time you spend in here. Due to the speed at which the mind thinks, we'll have more time than we would have in reality. Think of it as a speech. You can mentally overview the whole speech in your head but when you actually say it, the duration of the speech increases dramatically. The same theory applies here. So far you have spent exactly 4 minutes and 42 seconds counting but your familiars have only just realized you're in a magical coma. "

Harry nodded, this time his eyes were slightly glazed over. Hermione would have a kick out of this. Merlin's magical imprint seemed really knowledgeable. The only response Harry could think of now was "Really, that's interesting."Merlin continued to talk.

"Since a second has passed in the real world and about 5 minutes have passed here. A year of training will equal half an hour in the real world. The real Merlin couldn't devise a way to put your body in a magical stasis without nullifying having the same muscle mass and core size on both your real body and your mental one. So if you have any bodily needs they'll have to be put on hold until you come out of training. I'll teach for two years or in reality an hour. Your familiars are trustworthy because I scoured time for familiars that are perfect for you. The same goes for the other three Heirs."

Harry's eyes glazed over again as he processed the information.

"Wait, hold on. Whose Heir are the others and who am I the heir of? Why are you so interested in me and go through all this trouble to make sure I get training?"

Merlin smiled," You're my Heir and in the first vision I showed you, there were four other people in it. Arthur Pendragon and his wife, Guinevere, and my wife, Nimue, all have Heirs that are your age. Morgana's Heir is this man, Voldemort. I have Seen that you'll have to confront him in the future and from then on the future is split. One path is the safety of the world and the other is the world where Voldemort uses the Earth as his playground. The other Heirs will be by your side in the Last Battle and we have planned for all of you to be at your full potential ."

"So you've been manipulating everything to make sure that me and three others have our full potential." said Harry with one eyebrow raised.

"In a sense yes. After all, in your time and world the wizards seem to put kin above all else. Why not do the same for my kin no matter how distantly related? You'll find the other Heirs when you go to Hogwarts. It took a large amount of manipulation to make sure that the all of you know each other and go to the same school or else teamwork is out of the question."

Harry nodded again. So he knew the other three Heirs. Ron or maybe Hermione? Merlin didn't specify whether if he just knew their name or if he actually were friends with them. Granted manipulating people who were at least five centuries in the future wasn't a easy task.

"Okay the first thing I'm going to teach you is how to protect all the secrets that I'll teach you. Some of the magic I know wouldn't do well in the hands of a person who will go to such lengths to enter the mind of a teenager. Now close your eyes and breathe deeply. Think of a place that comforts you. Go over each little detail in your mind."

Harry closed his eyes and thought of the Quidditch Pitch. He thought of the thrill of flying on his broom and the excitement he got when he caught it. His heart beat sped up a bit at those thoughts. Merlin frowned.

"Harry, the place must make you feel relaxed, not excited. Think of a different place."

He tried again. This time the mental image of Hogwarts appeared. It didn't matter that he almost got killed annually, Hogwarts was his home away from home or rather home away from abusive hell-hole where the Dursley's lived. Harry's mind slowly thought of the winding corridors and decorations that hung along the wall. He recreated the warm feeling of the Gryffindor common room and his dorm. Merlin watched carefully as Harry's eye brow furrowed in concentration. Merlin switched on his mage sight and watched Harry's magic. Harry's magic was a deep orange with red on the sides, sort of like the flames Harry could wield one day. The magic clung to Harry's body and flickered like flames as well. Magic usually took both a shape and color when it was inside a living being. Some wizards had a definable shape to their magic while others had an abstract shape. Merlin knew for a fact that the other three Heirs would be definite shapes to their magic, one that corresponded to the element they would possess. A person's magic also responded to emotions. When angered the magic spread out from the body, but when calm the magic stayed close to its source. Merlin noted that Harry was calm and must be recreating the place that made him calm and relaxed. Good, Harry was one step closer to learning to defend his mind.

##############

"They all died. I barely managed to escape with my life."

"Crucio. You dare to lie to me. Barty came in a few minutes after you. He told me how you ran off before you even tried to capture Moody. My plans have been ruined. "

Peter screamed as the curse was held on him for a minute, longer than the usual half a minute that Voldemort usually gave out. After all minions that are still functioning are better than those that are vegetables.

"Leave me. I'll have to think of another way to take care of Potter while regaining my own body. A body of a baby is no way to show the world that the Dark Lord rises again."

#############

**A/n:** Harry's training will take a hour in real time. A lot faster than Time Turners and this is also a way to keep Harry the same age as Neville and the other two characters. All of the other Heirs will also get their own Cube with their respective ancestors. I'm trying to hold off the pairings until as long as possible but I'll have to stop the voting when Harry goes to Hogwarts which won't be for another few chapters. After that the story will start to progress faster.

**Harry/Draco:**12

**Harry/Hermione:**7

**Harry/Luna:**1

**Neville/Luna:**7

**Neville/Hermione:**6

jessirose85: Nope but good guess. The binding was supposed to be very strong. Uncle Algie doesn't have that much power to bind Neville's core.

ROBERT-19588- The Longbottom family is an Ancient and Noble Family. It stands to reason that their wards are also old and powerful. Besides, purebloods control the Magical Government and they want their kids to be able to do magic and practice the Unforgivables without government interference, so they might have banded together to make the wards making the magic undetectable legal.

MBBAndit- Sorry, but that's not right. Think completely outside of the box. There's actually two right answers but I'm not saying why or it'll ruin one of the biggest plot twists I have planned.

mineharmony: Thanks for an in-depth analysis on why that pairing should be good.


	7. Neville's Training

**Chapter 7**

Warning: maybe some bad language, anything that doesn't float your boat

Disclaimer: I don't own anything from the Potter universe.

Story Recommendation:

**Methods of Rationality by Less Wrong.**

The most reviewed fanfiction story on this site. It's a story about if Petunia married a science professor instead of Vernon Dursley. The story is actually kind of complicated but it's a good read.

August 10,1994 (Mid-morning)

Neville had been training for a week and he was sore after each day to the point where he couldn't even moan in pain. On the first day of training, Neville had to run around Longbottom Manor. The Manor's land was roughly the size of New York, the mansion on the other hand was about three miles around. After Neville ran that, Moody just clucked in shame and made him run it again. Moody had Neville run around the Manor for three days before he decided that Neville had enough. This time Neville had to levitate an item while running around the mansion. The levitation was easily done but after the first few steps, Neville reassessed the difficulty of the task. It was like running while lugging around a boulder which was just what the item he had to levitate was. This went on until today where Neville finally found that running around with a boulder levitating behind was getting easy. Wizards and witches had a higher healing rate which meant that Neville felt less sore than a Muggle would have been if the Muggle did the same task. Neville finally made it to his starting point slightly out of breath. He cancelled the levitation charm on the boulder and watched it crash to the ground. Moody watched him closely.

"Good job, boy. Warm-up is done for today. I expect you to do this every morning until it becomes as easy as breathing. When that happens I'll make the warm-up harder. Let's move on to today's lesson."

Neville started to feel happier. Finally some magic he could learn. Neville straightened his back from his normal slouch position that he used to draw less attention to himself. Moody would yell at him until Neville finally lost of the habit of slouching. In Moody's exact words, none of my students have every slouched because they have nothing to be ashamed, straighten your back and I might consider you one of my students.

"Now, pay attention closely."

Moody pointed his wand towards the ground and a large pile of small rocks appeared beside him. Neville didn't see any wand motions other than a slight jab so he pointed his wand at the ground and thought about making rocks appear. With a slight thump, the largest pile of rocks Neville and Moody had ever seen appeared next to Neville. It was about as high as the fourth story of Longbottom Manor. Neville looked up at the top of pile with shock. Moody looked at it with shock too.

"Are you tired?" asked the ex-Auror gruffly. Neville shook his head. Conjuring the rocks were as easy as the levitation spell he had to do this morning. Moody continued to be shocked. He quickly shook off the feeling of shock and move onto the real lesson. With another jab of his wand the pile of small rocks started to levitate. Then with his other hand, he cast small banisher spell at one of rocks. The rock sped towards Neville and hit him on the arm.

"Ow, what the bloody hell was that for?"

Moody didn't answer and sent another rock speeding towards the boy. The rock hit his leg this time. Moody made sure the rocks would only leave a light bruise that could be healed with Episkey. After the third rock sped towards Neville, when Neville dodged out of the way.

"Good, now dodge all of these."

Rocks started to fly towards Neville as he tried to dodge all of them. He was partially successful as he dodged a few while other rocks hit him. Moody worked his way through his pile then Neville's pile as he continued to banish rocks at Neville. After a whole afternoon, Neville's dodging skills became better enough that maybe one out of four rocks hit him instead of the beginning one out of two.

"We're done for today. Let's see what's for dinner."

Moody limped off back into the house as Neville cast Episkey on himself. The bruises all over his body healed and Neville sprinted towards the house. When Neville caught up to Moody, he slowed down and walked with the grizzled Auror to the family dining room, which was just an oak table that could fit 5 people and could expand if the Longbottom family every expanded. Now it was just occupied by the three people usually by only two. Moody looked at the boy with his normal eye. The boy was still too meek. When he hit trainees with the rocks, they yelped and screamed and cast rocks back at them. Even he explained the purpose of the exercise they still complained and grumbled profanities under their breath. Neville just took it and didn't even hold the slightest grudge against Moody for subjecting him to that. The boy wouldn't last three seconds in a fight if he only dodged punches because he was too meek to throw any.

August 12,1944(Evening)

Neville was a pro at dodging now. Moody had started to use Stunning spells after Neville could successfully dodge the rocks. Every time Neville got hit with the Stunning spell, Moody made him run around Longbottom Manor. The result of this was that Neville no longer looked anything like chubby. He could run three miles like you could run from the TV to the toilet. Now that Neville could run three miles easy, Moody decided that it was time for Neville to learn some real magic. Moody detested inactive wizards and witches who used magic to do everything. None of his students would ever be blobs of fat. He personally made sure of it.

Due to so many spells not working for Neville, the wand movements and incantations weren't instinctive because after repeated failures, using spells outside of the classroom was a waste of time. This made teaching Neville to ignore the incantations and learn jabbing much easier. Students like Hermione would almost have an impossible time trying to remove the incantations and wand movements from their spells due to the fact that they used the spells outside and inside the classroom enough times that they knew it instinctively. After all writing on a bland board was easier than writing on one filled with doodles. Moody was making Neville work on all the spells from first year and up with wordless and jabbing casting. Moody also wanted Neville to learn wandless spells too. Neville crowed in triumph as his wandless-casted Expelliarmus hit the vase target and made it smash through the protective ward Moody set up.

"Boy has power enough to spare. This is the fifth time I have to upgrade the wards to cope with his spells." muttered Moody as he levitated another ward stone to the ward configuration and reactivated the wards with a touch of his wand. Ward stones were magical rocks that could conduct magic easily. The stones were cube shaped and covered in runes. Some of the runes absorbed ambient magic and transferred into the wards. The ward stones Moody were using only had a ward that contained spells and flying objects. Since the wards were so simple, they should have been strong enough to contain a whole barrage of spells but Neville could take down the ward easier than he should have been able to. His magical eye didn't detect any magical amulets that could enhance power levels. The boy must be incredibly powerful. A small vibration signified the power-up of the wards.

"That's enough spell casting for today. Take a jog around the Manor to cool down and then come back here."

Neville obediently nodded and jogged off. The boy had more of a spine than before and showed emotions other than shame and inadequacy. Moody waited patiently for a few minutes before Neville came back after running. He was covered in a light sheen of sweat and was breathing slightly heavier than he normally did.

"Not bad. 9 minutes isn't good enough though. I want you to finish three miles in less than 5 minutes. That's supposed to be easy. Now, enough with physical training. It's time you learned how to protect your mind. I want you to meditate at least half an hour before you go to bed each night. When you can sit still and meditate for that long, talk to me after training and we'll add Occlumency to your training schedule."

Moody patted Neville's back and cast Scourgify to clean him.

"Go take a shower and relax. The next two weeks are going to be brutal."

August 19,1994

One week later, Neville finally managed to meditate for half an hour. Earlier in the week he finally managed to calm himself down after Violet sat in his lap and purred. Now he could meditate without Violet's help. During the weeks that he was training Violet was training too. She managed to convince his grandmother to let a few Acromantulas, spiders that could be human-sized or larger, into the forests of Longbottom Manor. Violet hunted each of them down and practiced killing with her large claws and teeth. Neville and Violet shared memories of their training days. After watching Violet's memories, Neville could see why nundus and dragons were both classified as the world's most dangerous magical creatures. Neville walked up to Moody after he finished teaching him the last of the seventh year spells. The spells were easy to cast but Moody had to explain what each spell did so Neville could visualize the result enough for him to cast the spell wandless and using jabbing.

"Sir, I-I-I learned how to meditate, sir."

Moody rolled his eyes at the repeated honorific titles Neville gave him. Sure, he liked one sir in everything his students say to him but two was a bit too much.

"Good job. Took you longer than I expected but you managed to finish it before I grew old. Now meditate again tonight. This time when you're meditating, visualize withdrawing into yourself. Keep on visualizing that until you manage to see your core."

"What does my core look like, sir?"

"Everybody has a different core, but your magical core will always be shining and have a certain color and shape that make you feel comfortable. I'm pretty sure you won't see anything other than darkness if you fail so if you see any light at all then my best bet is that you've reached your core. When that happens, try to reach your core faster and faster until you can do it in a split second."

Neville nodded and jogged off to run around Longbottom Manor. Moody watched the boy go. He was progressing fast. Tomorrow they'll work on some real world skills, his personal favorite. Once Neville learns that then maybe Moody will teach him spells that weren't meant to be taught to hormonal teenagers that were trigger happy.

Neville took quick shower and cast a teeth cleaning charm after dinner. He sat down on the floor at the foot of his bed and sat "criss-cross apple sauce." He quickly achieved the trance like state that happened with deep meditation. Instead of focusing on nothing like he usually did while meditating, Neville focused on withdrawing into himself. The feeling wasn't pleasant and he felt like he was shrinking. The panic and fear snapped the trance he was in. Neville opened his eyes with a slight gasp of momentary panic. He looked around to make sure everything was normal and tried again.

August 21,1994(Morning)

Neville finally got it. Never mind that he spent most of the night trying but he managed to reach his core. He was meditating last night and got a glimpse of something green and glowing. After another few minutes he could see all of his core. It was green and looked like a dense ball of vines that kept moving and changing directions. He spent the rest of the night trying to reach his core faster and faster until he reached what he hoped was Moody's expectations.

He rummaged through his school trunk and pulled out a Pepper-Up potions. Neville used the Pepper-up Potion if he pulled an all nighter revising his essays. The correct use was really for curing the common cold but somebody found out that it gave you extra energy. Neville hadn't tried that out for himself yet but now was a good as time as any.

Neville downed the potion and hoped nobody would notice that he didn't get a wink of sleep last night. He rushed down stairs to tell Moody that he could learn Occlumency now.

Augusta and Moody were making small talk and eating the muffins that the Longbottom house elves had made. She heard footsteps from the hallway leading to the dining room and was about to say good morning to Neville when she saw his face. There were dark bags under his blood shot eyes but his face looked too energized. Something was wrong but she couldn't put her finger on it.

"Neville, what's wrong?"

Neville started to panic. He really wanted to learn Occlumency but if she found out then he would have to go back to bed.

"Something. I mean nothing. Yeah nothing at all. Why do you ask?" said Neville really fast as he looked everywhere but at his grandmother.

Augusta thought for a few seconds.

"Did you get any sleep at all? What were you thinking?" she said sternly and glared at him.

Neville's face fell slightly, but it was immediately replaced with a grin.

"I just wanted to learn Occlumency." He turned to Moody," Guess what? I finally can reach my magical core. Can you teach me Occlumency now. Please. Please. Please. Come on."

Moody frowned. Neville didn't seem like his normal. He was much too hyper to sit down for over two hours learning the basics of Occlumency.

"No not today. Maybe until you're less excited."

"But I'm not excited. I can sit down and be very calm. See."

Neville demonstrated for less than two seconds that he could be calm until he was pestering Moody to teach him Occlumency again. Moody closed his eyes and tried to stop himself from stunning the boy. When did Neville become so annoying? Augusta was thinking along the same lines as well.

Moody couldn't take the constant jabbering anymore and cast the Silencing Spell, Silencio, on Neville before asking Augusta.

"Has Neville ever acted like this before?"

"No, never. He's usually calm and almost never acts like this." Augusta gestured the boy was currently running around in circles.

Augusta thought for few minutes. No, it couldn't be. Neville would never be dumb enough to use a potion for something it was intended to do. She quickly cancelled the silencing charm.

"Neville, have you taken a Pepper-up Potion recently?"

"Yes of course I have. It was great. I feel great. This is great. I feel happy. Are you happy? Why aren't you smiling? You should be smiling. "

Great. When she was in her Hogwarts years, somebody started a joke that drinking a Pepper-Up potion gave you extra energy so you can study longer. A Ravenclaw actually tried it but she was too hyper to do any studying. She mostly just bounced off the walls, literally. The next day though, the girl was too tired to even move let alone go to class. Looks like the joke has survived the 80 some years that had passed.

Moody understood where Augusta's line of thinking was going and pulled out a bezoar, a stone that could absorb poisonous potions and liquids from a person's body after being sucked on. Moody stunned Neville and shoved the bezoar down his throat. He cast the countercharm to the Stunning spell and was surprised to still see Neville laying there. He listened closely and heard slight snoring sounds coming from Neville.

"Well, I get half the day off since your grandson catching up lost sleep. See you after lunch."

In the afternoon

Neville woke up and felt refreshed. It seemed to be a pretty good morning. The events from before came back to him suddenly. He blushed as he remembered the way he was acting hyper. He hadn't acted like that since the house elves accidently gave him his grandmother's coffee to drink. He quickly got out of bed and rushed downstairs to find Moody.

He found Moody in the forest meditating which was something that probably went against all of the man's personality traits.

"Sit down. I can teach the basics of Occlumency but not the advanced Occlumency, the Auror corps never did teach that."

Neville sat down across from Moody.

"Now access your magical core through meditation. Reach into your core and take a small amount of magic. Shape the magic into a shield to protect your mind. It might take a while before you're used to instinctively have the shield up."

Neville tried it and made a glittering emerald shield protecting his mind. Moody made Neville practice spells and do menial labor while attacking Neville's shield with Legilimency. Over the course of the afternoon, Neville's mental shield could withstand Moody's meager Legilimency skills.

"Good work. I've taught you all I know about Occlumency. It's pretty basic but learning advanced Occlumency could be beneficial. I've heard that they can control their emotions perfectly and could show a Legilimens false memories. I can't teach that though. Minister Fudge refused to spend any more money than absolutely necessary on Auror training so Aurors only know the basics."

Neville still felt happy. His most embarrassing memories were safe. He heard a rumor that Snape knew Legilimency and he didn't want the greasy bastard to sift through his memories like he was browsing at a library.

August 23,1944(Early Morning)

Neville continued to jog around the Manor and could see the place where Moody usually stood waiting for him to finish up. Odd, where was his tutor? He was never late except for that one time when he thought he was eating a poisonous waffle and spent the rest of the morning sucking on a bezoar, a magical stone found in a goat's intestine that could cure most poisons. Neville sprinted towards the starting point where Moody usually waited faster than he had ever run. He reached the spot panting and looked around for his tutor.

Moody waited under a disillusionment charm and behind a tree. He had his wand lightly grasped in his hand as he waited for Neville to react. He would have tried this a long time ago but Neville would have assumed he was running late and nothing close to the panic Moody wanted Neville to feel would happen. That's why he was always waiting at the starting point when Neville finished his run. Neville would always assume that Moody would be waiting for him after days and days of that happening set a pattern in his mind. Now that the pattern was disrupted Neville would start to panic. This was his test. To see if Neville was level-headed or was he one of those wizards who were quick to pull out a wand and jump to conclusions.

Neville looked around the small clearing next to the Manor with trepidation building. Moody was never late where could he be? Did somebody manage to penetrate the wards and kidnap his tutor? He quickly squashed those thoughts under the heel of his mental foot. Moody was an excellent wizard with a magical eye that could see through disillusionment charms and invisibility cloaks, not many people could ambush him. If he did get into a fight, then the resulting duel would have attracted his attention or his grandmothers. Neville bit his lip as he played through different scenarios on what happened to Moody. The scenarios got worse and worse so he quit thinking about what happened to his tutor and more on how to find him.

Moody chuckled quietly as he saw Neville start to panic. Sadly Neville didn't freak out like his Auror trainees did. Time to step it up. He pointed his wand at Neville and cast a string of minor hexes and charms. Neville didn't even have time to react before the Stunning spell and Disarming spells hit him. He fell to the ground and his wand lay a few feet away from his body.

#############

"Enervate."

Neville found himself bound with rope and hanging upside down from a branch the second Moody regained consciousness. Moody clucked in shame as he walked around the bound boy.

"I'm very disappointed in you. You didn't even react before I had you Stunned and disarmed. I thought I had taught you better than that. Let be this be a lesson to you. Death Eaters will gladly stab you in the back and they won't announce their presence to you before attacking. That's why I want you to maintain a Supersensory charm at all times. The charm will allow you to have a 360 view around you at all times with a heightened sense of smell and hearing. It'll will give you a headache from sensory overload for the first few days you use it but it's a price you have to pay to stay alive. Cast the spell mentally right now. When you have it in place, tell me how many fingers I'm holding up."

Moody held up four fingers and waited for Neville to answer.

"Um, four?"

Moody nodded and released Neville from the ropes. Neville fell to the ground with a crash and laid down on the ground with a dizzy expression on his face. Everything was so different with the Supersensory charm on. He could barely tell which way was forward. The forest smelled mostly like pine and he was sure he caught a scent of decaying Acromantula. Moody walked forward and Neville could hear the distinct crunch of each leaf. Neville closed his eyes and tried to fight the nausea that was rising from the overloading of his senses. Moody quietly handed Neville two potions, a headache potion and an anti-vomit potion. Neville downed both gratefully and slowly sat up.

"Let's go back inside. Being outdoors might not help you right now and you're in no shape to do any physical training. I have something set up inside that I want you to do." whispered Moody before helping Neville up.

Both of them walked back into Longbottom Manor with Moody supporting Neville using his shoulder as a makeshift crutch. Neville was still in a slight daze. He could smell the scents of multiple people and animals in the house. One of them he recognized as Violet. She smelled just like her breath did, a mixture of earth and lavender. Neville closed his eyes as more scents started to overwhelm him. Moody gently handed another anti-vomit and headache potion to Neville. Neville drank them and smelled both of the potion's scent. The anti-vomit potion smelled like vomit with undertones of sulfur while the headache potion smelled like salt. Neville felt slightly better and concentrated on walking to avoid being overloaded with smells and sound.

Moody stopped in front of the rarely used potions lab on the third floor. He tried to quietly open the door but Neville still winced at the screeching sound the door made as it opened. Moody led Neville onto a bench and went to retrieve some vials. The potions lab was grey with multiple gray countertops lining the walls of the room with a few of the countertops in the middle. They all had cauldron pedestals with runes lining the side of the pedestal as well as a rack of knives and tools. The runes used ambient magic to heat up the pedestal for use in potion making instead of the customary open flame. Everything was charmed and had runes for repelling of liquids and gases. The ceiling also had a rune set that funneled dangerous gases out of the potions lab. The back wall of the room had a door and a cabinet. The door led to a room with potion ingredients. There were rune sets etched into the walls and containers that kept the ingredients fresh. The Longbottom Potions Lab had ingredients that were so rare that the Ministry already classified the plants and animals that they came from as extinct. Moody was heading towards the cabinet near the back of the room. It was made of dark yew wood and was charmed to be unbreakable. Inside were various potions that had preservation charms on them to keep them fresh along with anti-scent charms to keep the cabinet from reeking. Moody grabbed some of the vials and walked back to Neville.

"I want you to be able to identify these potions from both sight and smell. This way you'll be able to smell if your food is tainted or not. I've had people try and slip me Veritaserum in my drink once. If I hadn't cast my daily potion detecting charms on my food, I would have told the reporters about the black op missions the Ministry has sent me on."

Moody held up the first vial and uncorked the top of. The potion smelled like lead and paint fumes. Neville's eyes started to water from the intensity of the smell before Moody put the cork back onto the vial.

"That was Veritaserum. If you only decide to memorize one of these potions, I suggest you memorize this one. You'll never know when your enemies might spike your drink with it to try and get you fired."

Moody uncorked another vial and held it up for Neville to see and smell. The smell made Neville gag and he started to fell faint as he saw the dozens of vials Moody had set up ready for him to memorize.

August 23,1994(Early Morning)

Neville finally got over the sensory overload. Everything went back to normal except for the fact that Violet took it as a personal challenge to sneak up on him. It was a hard task due to the 360 view and heightened senses that Neville possessed thanks to the Supersensory charm he maintained like second nature. He was glad he had heightened senses otherwise he wouldn't have been able to fend off the multiple ambush scenarios Moody randomly set up or the random occasions where Moody tried to cast curses at him while his back was turned. He was snapped out of his thoughts when he heard the distinctive footsteps of Moody.

"Grab your wand, kid. Since you know all the spells that a graduate from Hogwarts would know, I suggest we have a duel with the trainee Auror wands I managed to filch from the Ministry before I retired. They'll simulate almost all spells including the spell damage if you get hit. Transfiguration and conjuration spells will work but note that anything you do with this wand will only be simulation based on how you visualize the results to be. I was bored so I also made two bracelets that would simulate spells if you cast wandlessly. "

Moody pulled out two bright red wands and two green bracelets from under his undercoat and handed one of each to Neville. They both slipped on one of the bracelets and grabbed a wand. Neville put his real wand back into the wand holster Moody bought for him. The wand holster applied a small switching spell between the air in his hand and his wand. This way whenever he wanted to use his wand all he had to do was to mentally activate the switching spell. To put the wand back into the holster, the switching spell would switch the air inside of the wand holster with the wand in his hand. The holster was also a good way to regain his wand back if it was ever taken away or stolen because the switching spell worked no matter however far away his wand was. The holster was also equipped with a localized Fidelius charm that hid it from anybody he didn't tell the secret to. The wand holster was also equipped with an invisibility charm just in case the Fidelius didn't work. It cost quite a pretty penny. The penny was so pretty, it could have won the Miss Penny Beauty Pageant.

Moody led Neville to the large training room he had requested as part of the payment for teaching Neville. The room was equipped with a changeable environment. Right now Moody had it set to the standard dueling arena. It was just a basketball court-sized platform that was completely flat. Moody stood on one end and watched Neville walk towards the other end of the platform. Moody raised his wand and cast a Reducto at Neville while his back was turned.

Neville walked to the other side of the platform and marveled at the things his new senses could detect. He noticed with alarm as he saw Moody fire a curse from behind him. Neville twisted out of the way of the spell and faced Moody.

"Stay on your toes boy. No enemy of yours is going to wait for you to get into a good position to attack back. You have to be ready for anything."

Moody sent out more curses from the red wand while Neville wandlessly shielded with his left arm. Neville quickly cast multiple Reductos at the ground and transfigured the debris that resulted from the spell. Moody was soon beset on all sides as a pack of wolves, simulated of course, attacked him. Neville conjured a pile of rocks , his control was better now and he could keep the rock piles to a more manageable level. He transfigured the rocks into a dragon and sent it towards Moody.

His tutor was busy as well. He easily dispatched the wolves with an overpowered Expulso curse that flung the wolves back. Moody sent Cutting curses to kill the wolves that were trying standing up. The transfigured wolves turned back into debris. He turned towards Neville and was about to send curses towards him when he noticed the rather large dragon heading towards him. Crap, when did Neville transfigure that? Moody dodged the dragon's charge and sent Reductos towards the dragon. The spells only bounced off the dragon's hide. He inwardly cursed and powered power into a stronger spell.

"Diffindo."

The Severing Charm cut into the dragon's left leg and it roared in anger. The dragon opened its mouth and started to spit fire at Moody. Moody hastily cast Aquamenti at the flames and poured magic into the spell to counteract the dragon fire. The Auror quickly cast a Conjunctivitis curse with his left hand at the dragon's eyes along with a Confundus curse. The Confundus curse caused the dragon to stop breathing fire and attacked Neville.

Neville stopped transfiguring rocks into carnivorous animals when he saw the dragon coming for him. He knew that the dragon and transfigured animals were only buying him time. He sort of hoped Moody would be too tired after fending off the dragon. Neville directed the large pack of animals to stall the dragon and rolled out of the way of Moody's curses. Neville returned fire with multiple Gouging curses and Reductos that were spread out in a wide swath. Moody was forced to erect a shield that to block the spells. Neville continued to rain spells onto the shield hoping to break it. The shield buckled and a Reducto hit Moody in the chest. Moody fell to the floor and his body vanished. The point of a wand was pressed to the back of Neville's head. Neville turned around slowly and saw the real Moody holding him under wand point.

"Good job. You have power that's for sure. Transfiguring items may come a bit easy to you and to most wizards and witches, using transfiguration and conjuration are tiring things. Instead of just using brute force trying using underhanded tactics to win. This isn't a perfect fairytale where the other person is fighting for you honor. No , usually the other person is trying to kill you as fast as possible. Do anything to win. When you're fighting for your life, the end does justify the mean. Just make sure you don't do anything that the Auror corps can lock you up for. The Ministry doesn't like powerful wizards who aren't under their thumb. We're going to duel again."

Moody limped over to the other side and batted away the Stunning spell Neville sent at his back.

"That's much better. Maybe you are listening."

August 31,1994(Evening)

Neville ate the last dinner with his grandmother before leaving for Hogwarts with Moody. She was quite proud of the way her grandson was turning out. She had personally dueled Neville a few days ago and was quite surprised when she was beaten after a long duel with him. Neville liked using conjuration and transfiguration in his dueling style that kept her one her toes. Moody also had been teaching hand to hand combat and she had to use her own meager hand-to-hand fighting skills to hold him off long enough for her to use a Expulso spell to push him back.

"More potatoes please, grandmum."

Augusta handed her grandson the plate with the baked potatoes in it. Neville took a few and he ate all of them quickly. He enjoyed his grandmum's cooking but she rarely cooked because the house elves felt insulted when she cooked her own food. They thought she didn't like their cooking so much that she had to cook her own food to be able to eat. She made a deal with the house elves so she could cook her grandson one last meal made by her own hand once a year. In return she let the house elves clean some of the other Longbottom houses. If she cooked her own meal again, the house elves would probably commit mass suicide from extreme shame.

Neville finished eating and helped his grandmother clean up the dishes. He levitated the dirt dishes into the kitchen on the first floor and a house elf gladly took the dishes off to clean. Neville ran off to his room to finish packing his trunk. He took the steps three at a time and went into his room. He closed the door and petted Violet's head.

"I'm going back to Hogwarts, Violet. I can't wait to see if I do any better in class now that Moody taught for a whole month."

_"Can I come with you?"_

"I'm not sure you're allowed to. Everybody would freak out if a nundu walked into Hogwarts. Do you think you can hide out in the Forbidden Forest? I'll come and visit you every night. It might be dangerous though."

_"I can handle myself. Not many animals or wizards can hurt a nundu. Only a full grown dragon can hope to take on me. Do you have any dragons in your forest."_

"I'm pretty sure not. Harry told me there were Acromantulas and unicorns. I think the Acromantulas might be the worst thing in the forest. Maybe the centaurs might be trouble though."

_"Centaurs don't taste so good. I fought a few Acromantulas while you were training. It was fun. They were very squishy. I can take care of myself, though. I'll almost a grown nundu. Please let me come with you. Please. Pretty please. I'll promise to be good."_

"Fine I'll hide you in my train compartment and sneak you into Hogwarts. Come on I'll try and put you under a disillusionment spell. Grandmum told me that nundus are highly resistant to spells. The disillusionment spell might not work."

Neville tapped Violet's head with his wand. She disappeared for a second under the spell but she reappeared. Neville tried again with a lot more power this time. His wand tip glowed white and he tapped Violet's head again. With a flash of white light, Violet disappeared under the disillusionment spell.

_"That felt really funny. Like you cracked an egg on my head, a really cold one." _

Violet tried walking around with the disillusionment charm on. It was disorientating to walk around without seeing her body. She bumped into a wall and tried to get used to walking around. Neville waved his wand and the things he wanted to take with him to Hogwarts floated into his trunk and packed themselves. His grandmother had brought him a trunk with space enlargements in it. It had four side compartments , two on each side, and one large compartment in the front. The side compartments were each the size of a normal trunk while the largest compartment was a small room. Neville emptied out his room so the only things left were his furniture and his PJ's. He cancelled the disillusionment charm on Violet and scratched behind her ears.

"Tomorrow's going to a long day. You should get some rest before we leave tomorrow."

Violet yawned loudly and curled up at the foot of Neville's bed. Neville smiled and went to go change into his pajamas. He walked into the large closet that held his clothes. Being a pureblood heir to an Ancient and Noble House meant that he had to have robes for almost every occasion. He rarely wore many of the robes but his grandmother always upgraded his wardrobe. He took off the sweatpants and casual shirt he was wearing. He looked into the mirror and saw what a month of training with Moody did. Moody pushed him past his limit at least three times every day. The result was that his body was toned and his muscles were all very well defined. He slipped on his pajamas with a vine design on them and cast a teeth cleaning charm. There he's ready for one last quiet night of rest. Ron's snoring and Seamus' muttering didn't really help him fall asleep.

His grandmother came to tuck him in, something Neville never got to experience when he was younger. Augusta was trying to make up for her emotional coldness by spoiling him now. She cast a levitation spell on Violet and gently floated her on Neville's bed. She tucked him in fluffed his pillow. She kissed him on the forehead.

"Gran, you don't have to do that. I'm 14 now."

"Nonsense, you never had a good night kiss for 12 years. I need to make it up to you. Have a good night's rest. You'll need it for tomorrow."

She hugged him good night and turned off the lights.

"Good night, Neville."

"Night, Grandmum."

#############

**A/n**: So, the pairing for Harry has been decided. He will be paired with Draco. Neville will be paired Luna. The next chapter will be about Harry.

**jessirose85**: Nope, more good guesses. His parents binding his core is actually really outside of the box. Think even more outside of the box, at least 5 or 6 miles outside of it. Thanks for the reviews though.


	8. Finding Better Pastures

**Chapter 8- Finding Better Pastures**

**Warning:** some language, violence, homicidal aunt

**Disclaimer:** This fanfiction is not owned by me but by a lady in England who is at least 10000x richer than me.

August 2,1994 (Day 365 of Cube Reality)

Training in his mind was something new. He didn't have to rest or eat. For that matter, he didn't have to use the bathroom and he didn't feel sore after training. Apparently he also couldn't die here. Merlin had added this feature so dueling would be more realistic. Harry didn't want to test that out just yet.

Occlumency training went along quite well. It only took a few months of constant training for Harry to become a Master Occlumens and Legilimens. Occlumency was one of the few things Merlin couldn't teach Harry through a memory so Harry spent a while organizing his memories and directing where the new memories would go so he didn't have to routinely spend time organizing his thoughts. Merlin also helped him set up defenses into his mindscape. Harry stuffed the Forbidden Forest with all of the dangerous creatures he could think of. Everybody who entered his mind was dumped in the middle of the Forest. If somebody managed to make it through the forest then Hogwarts had its only defenses. All of the statues and suits of armors that normally decorated the walls were patrolling the corridors along with all of the dark memories Harry had ever experienced. His important memories weren't actually stored in Hogwarts, though. Merlin suggested someplace more discrete than a gigantic castle, so Harry hid the most important memories in the Chamber of Secrets with a basilisk guarding them as a last resort. The trivial memories were in the Gryffindor common room as a decoy.

Merlin decided to go through teaching him the basics of magic. He found that the Hogwart's syllabus was lacking. Actually the education of the world was lacking as well. Everybody here had the same magical foci, a wand. There was no difference in each wand other than the wood and core. Merlin could remember a witch who liked to use her pet dog as a magical foci. It actually worked because the dog's own small magical core magnified the witch's magic. The dog sadly died during a battle with the Wicked Witch of the West, Dorothy was never quite the same after that. Harry would end up using Merlin's staff as his magical foci. Being both Merlin's magical and blood heir as well as the reincarnation of Merlin's soul, the staff would have the closer affinity to Harry than any other magical foci. His secondary foci would be probably the flamberge, a long sword with a wavy edge on both sides. Flamberge literally translated to "flame blade."

Bad habits were also irking Harry's teacher. Wand motions weren't an important component of a spell working. They were the "training" wheels for younger wizards and witches to use before their magical core matured. Merlin found that even the adult wizards still had their "training wheels" on. Harry was actually doing fine with the newer spells that Merlin taught but the spells he had already learned were giving Harry trouble. The incantations and wand movements were imprinted in Harry's brain and bad habits are also notoriously hard to change. Harry had finally gotten the hang of it after wasting several precious weeks.

Training also meant exercising. Merlin made Harry work out constantly. He didn't want Harry to die because he was too tired to make any movements. No enemy allowed rest breaks in between duels. Harry would also need the muscle to be able to handle the flamberge for long periods of time.

Harry wasn't a bad student, though. Merlin enjoyed teaching him because unlike his apprentices Harry actually paid attention and tried his best. That was the only good side-effect of the abuse Harry got. If Harry didn't follow his Aunt's directions to the letter, than she beat him with her rolling pin and let Vernon take out his belt. Merlin hoped that Harry's familiars were guarding his body. Until 30 minutes passed in reality, Harry would be in a coma-like state where he couldn't even try and defend himself. That's why Merlin instructed the last familiar to bond with Harry to fetch the Cube and let Harry activate it. Now the second year, Merlin would be teaching Harry all of the magic he had learned over the course of his almost 800 year lifespan. The boy would have to experience all of his memories for him to learn them fast enough. The training was more than half way done and they still had much more to learn. Merlin quickly cut out the younger years of his life where he didn't know that magic existed and all of the romantic parts of his life. Harry didn't need to see him and Nimue naked just yet. He would be immersed in Merlin's memory for almost 10 months. The last two months of training would be dedicated to testing everything. Merlin had to make sure that Harry's Occlumency was perfect so Harry could easily tell the differences between his own life and the memories from Merlin.

#############

Reality

Loreal watched in concern as she saw Harry's mind enter the Cube. She never liked Merlin's training method but it was the only way for Harry and the other Heirs to get the knowledge that would be lost during the years that followed Merlin's death. She trilled softly and waited for the thirty minutes to pass. Time meant nothing to her as she had lived longer than humans had inhabited this planet but now time seemed to move slower than she had ever experienced.

Braze tried not to look concerned. After all, the kid was annoying and didn't have a speck of common sense, but Braze still liked the wizard even though he met the boy a little more than a day ago. He snuck another glance at the form lying in the bed and made sure none of the other familiars suspected that he was concerned for Harry. After all, he had to maintain his reputation as being the most cynical familiar. He was worried about Harry. He had been lying there perfectly still without any movement other than the steady rise and fall of his chest.

Sully didn't know Harry very well but he was a perfect match for the boy. That meant they would get along fine. He was more concerned about the door. It was bulging slightly inwards. The fat boy and the horse woman must be trying to get in. Fusing the metal together was a good strategy but the metal was still mostly hot and was easy to bend. It wouldn't be that hard to bust in. If the metal was cool than that would be a different matter. He mentally urged time to hurry up. He didn't want to have to kill anybody.

14 minutes had passed.

Dudley once again tried to break down the door using his considerable bulk. The freak must have used magic or something to shut it. After all the locks were on the outside. He backed up and tried ramming the door again. This time he could feel the door giving way. That freak is going to get what he deserved for even daring to fight back. Actually it was the freak's pet who hurt them but it didn't matter, it was still the freak's fault. Come on, the door should break now. He really wanted to beat up something and Harry was the perfect punching bag.

"Come on Dudders. Break down the door and punish my sister's whelp for hurting my husband." encouraged Petunia.

Dudley rammed the door with shoulder and felt the door give way completely. Yes, now freak can't hide or run anywhere now. Dudley tried to swagger in menacingly but the effect was ruined by the immense number of jelly rolls and the fact that Dudley couldn't swagger. It looked like he just skipped in. He looked around Harry's room. What a dump, this place had almost nothing in it except furniture. It wouldn't hurt to add some color. A chuckle escaped his lips as he thought about the freak living his natural habitat, the dump. His mother nudged him forward to find the freak and hurt him. Dudley continued to looked around for a second and saw the freak lying on a ratty mattress. He yelled with glee and went to punch Harry. He was startled when he heard a low growl from beside him. What was a large dog doing in here? Dudley backed up and took another good look around. There was a bird that was on fire and it seemed to look at him anger. Oh crap, the freak has even freaky pets and that lizard from before is here. Dudley backed away some more. He was so screwed.

16 minutes have passed.

Sully watched the fat whale-like boy bust down the door calmly. The boy smelled like fear and sweat. He wouldn't have enough courage to stand against all of three of Harry's familiars. The fat boy looked around and had the audacity to run towards Harry. Based on his earlier actions, he wasn't rushing towards Harry to give him a hug. Sully let out a low growl in warning. The whale backed up and the scent of fear increased. Sully walked forward and bared his canines. He growled menacingly and blocked the fat whale's path to Harry's bed. A few awkward minutes of Dudley trying to gather his courage to move forward passed and Sully started to smell the scent of urine.

Dudley felt his bladder let go and his underwear was suddenly flooded with warm, wet urine. He lost his urge to beat up the freak and rushed out of the room. Maybe he'll beat up the freak later, after his freaky pets have left.

20 minutes have passed.

Petunia watched in surprise as her obese pig of a son rushed out of the room, the scent of urine closely followed him. Even after death Lily taunted her, Petunia wasn't blind. She saw how mild-mannered and polite Harry was. She also saw how intelligent the boy was and if he wasn't so scrawny, girls would be clinging on to him like glue. She had always hated how her sister got to be a part of a magical world with unicorns and dragons while she got stuck in the normal world. When she married Vernon, she couldn't wait to rub it in Lily's face at the "perfect" husband she found. Sadly Lily brought a handsome young man with her that was clearly her husband. Lily's husband reeked of money and power while her husband just reeked. All of her envy and jealousy slowly turned into hate which she now turned on Lily's son. Her face twisted in a dark mask of hate and jealousy. Her thoughts ran to all the times Lily had bested her in something. Payback time.

22 minutes have passed.

She walked into the room with a much more menacing swagger than Dudley. The gun in her hand added to the swagger. She surveyed the room slowly and saw the three animals in the room along with that freak Lily called her son. Harry seemed to be in a coma of sorts. He was still lying on the bed and didn't move at all. Perfect, he's defenseless. She looked at the three animals. Petunia recognized them of course. Lily had brought home a book of magical animals just to rub it in her face. Lily looked so happy that it was infectious. Only afterwards had Petunia realized that seeing any of those creatures would be impossible. She remembered what animals were in Harry's room. The dark mastiff was a hellhound, the black skinned reptile with flames just under its skin was a fire salamander and the elegant red bird with dark green eyes was a phoenix. It didn't matter though. A bullet could kill no matter what the species.

Sully watched as another human walked into the room. This human looked like a horse. Judging by the smell she might not taste like one though. Her emotions were strong enough to be smelled like the fat boy's but her smell didn't have the smell of fear. No she smelled like anger and hate. She wouldn't run away in fear. Sully turned up his own aura. Hellhound's aura made people feel completely isolated. When they hunted down the damned, their auras made sure that the prey didn't go looking for help by making them feel like they were the only one left on the planet, completely and utterly alone.

Petunia had the feeling that Dudley wouldn't come back and help her and nobody else was in the house. She had to do this herself. The feeling of being alone increased and she felt like after she killed the boy, she would be the only one in the house. It increased and she felt claustrophobic and felt more isolated. Something freaky was going she knew it.

"Stop whatever freakish thing you're doing to me." she screamed as she pointed the gun at the dog and fired.

Sully saw that the woman was started to get enraged. He immediately did the other thing hellhounds were notorious for. He ghosted. Ghosting was the ability to travel through shadows. He disappeared and reappeared in the shadow of the small table. The bullets lodged themselves into the carpet.

Loreal watched the proceedings with alarm and turned up the heat of her own aura. She shielded Harry with her aura which was burning at about 6000 degrees. The heat was only felt if you were a few inches away from the aura shield but by then you would have third degree burns or worse.

Petunia fumbled with another cartridge and loaded it into the Walter PPK. Let's see Harry dodge this one. She fired the gun towards Harry's prone form.

The bullets hit the shield and promptly turned to small puddles of goo. Loreal trilled in triumph as not one of the bullets got through the shield. She felt more tired that the time than her Burning Day. Using her aura as a shield was tiring. She dropped the shield and hung her head in exhaustion. She wasn't used to manipulating her aura after centuries of not needing to. She was paying the price for not practicing her magic. Loreal hoped that Harry wouldn't pay the price as well.

Sully ghosted into the woman's shadow and knocked her down before she could fire the strange black device again. The horse-like woman fell down screaming and she reflexively lashed out with her hand. The butt of the pistol connected with the hellhound's head and Sully started to see stars. He ghosted away from the woman before falling unconscious behind Harry's bed.

Braze hissed in warning and reverted back to his natural state. His natural state was when the salamander looked like he was in a fireball. He didn't know what do with this woman. Harry didn't say if he had any fond feelings for the only female member of the Dursley family, only that he loathed the male members. The hesitation allowed the woman to walk over next to Harry's bed.

Petunia walked over and grabbed the empty owl cage on the ground. She stuffed the golden phoenix into the cage roughly. Loreal was too tired to flame her way out or melt the cage. She was exhausted and could only trill in complaint as the door latched shut.

The last familiar standing seemed to be Braze. He looked at Sully who was still unconscious on the other side of the bed and then to Loreal who was slumped in exhaustion in an owl cage. Braze looked at the person who did it with anger. It didn't matter how Harry felt about the woman now, she had injured the other two familiars. Braze launched a fireball at Petunia and watched it hit her shoulder with satisfaction.

Petunia screamed as a fireball from the freakish monster hit her shoulder. She could feel her skin blacken from the heat. She let out a scream of rage and pointed the gun at the freak's pet and fired.

Braze was stuck. If he moved, then Harry would get shot. If he didn't move, then he would get shot. He watched the woman point the gun at him. Braze made his decision and watched to bullet speed towards him.

Petunia walked up to Harry and pointed the gun at his forehead. Harry's eyes snapped open.

30 minutes had passed.

#######

Harry waved good bye to Merlin reluctantly as his two years of training started to end. It was fun being around someone whose expectations weren't so high. Everybody, even the Muggle-born, expected him to be a childhood prodigy and were disappointed when "the Boy-Who-Lived" was average if not a little smarter. It was refreshing to have a person judge him based on experience instead of preconceptions. With a flash of white blinding light, Harry's view of Merlin's Tower disappeared. When he blinked away the white spots from his vision, he could see the familiar white-washed ceiling his room. There was a difference though. He also had the barrel of a gun pressed against his forehead.

"Well , I guess the freak woke up."

He looked towards the direction of the voice and saw his aunt holding a gun to his forehead instead of Dudley. This was new. His aunt usually stayed in the background every time Harry was beaten. She only hit him when he didn't do his chores correctly.

"Why are you doing this?" asked Harry, intentionally adding a small waver to his voice.

"Your mother made my life a living hell. Every time I saw something about magic I thought about how Lily got to be a witch while I couldn't. Every time you show your face, I get reminded about how I gave birth to an obese whale. I invited Lily over to show off Vernon but instead she has some trophy husband who has more money than Vernon will ever earn. Now you start have magic and Dudley doesn't. It reminded me of Lily again." she screamed, waving her hands to try and make a point.

Harry took advantage of her distraction and cast vanished the bullets from the chamber.

"Shoot a defenseless boy then. Prove that you hate your sister that much."

Petunia's eyes narrowed in anger and squeezed the trigger. The gun fired nothing but air towards Harry's head. Harry conjured chicken blood and partially disillusioned part of his face. Petunia smiled in triumph and headed towards the bathroom to throw up.

Harry vanished the mess and got up with a chuckle. That was funny. Merlin wanted Harry to stay alive no matter the cost so he taught him how to fight dirty. He taught Harry how to do a partial disillusionment that hid an area of the body revealing the inner workings of the body. Harry had partially disillusioned his face and Petunia saw his jaw bone and skull as well as the chicken blood that was supposedly come from his wound. It was a useful strategy to let down the guard of his opponent.

A dejected trill from Hedwig's owl cage drew his attention. Hedwig was supposed to find him at King's Cross Station. That way she could spend the summer without spending it cooped up in her cage. Hedwig didn't trill either. Harry quickly glanced over the side of his bed and saw Loreal locked inside of the owl cage.

"How did you get in there?"

_"The woman and a fat boy came in and tried to hurt you. We didn't know if you cared for them so we only tried to disable not injure. Sully's unconscious from a blow to his head from the gun. Braze go shot though."_

"_I'm okay, though. It will take more than a hunk of metal to pierce the obsidian skin of a fire salamander. I'm just slightly winded. I'm not getting myself shot again anytime soon." _interjected Braze.

_"I love being in this owl cage and all but can you please let me out, Harry?"_

"Why can't you flame out? Please don't burn the cage, Hedwig doesn't like the new cage smell."

_"I'm too tired from manipulating my aura to shield you from the bullets. I'm not used to doing magic after centuries of not using my aura."_ explained Loreal.

Harry gladly let the phoenix out of the owl cage. Loreal ruffled her feathers and preened her wing feathers. Harry went to check on Sully. The hellhound was still lying prone on the dingy carpet floor. He gently shook Sully's shoulder.

"Are you okay? Wake up, Sully."

After a few minutes of nonstop shaking, Sully finally came to.

_"Ugh, my head hurts. I need a potion for my headache though." _said Sully as he shakily stood up.

Wow. That was the longest sentence from his third familiar so far. Harry fished out a an old headache potion from his trunk. He had was going to use it after the pounding headache he usually got after final exams. He never got around using it though. He conjured a small bowl and poured the potion into it.

Sully walked over and started to lap up the potion. Braze flamed next to the bowl and licked up some of the potion too.

_"That's much better. The potion's a bit old though. It tastes like sour milk."_

"Sorry, that's the only headache potion I have. You guys can rest before we travel to London. I have business to take care of."

His three familiars collectively yawned at that statement. Sully curled on Harry's bed while Loreal just keeled over and fell asleep. Braze snuggled against the hellhound for warmth and fell asleep too.

Harry chuckled and turned to the door of his room. It was lying on the floor for some odd reason. He picked it up and reattached the hinges. He cast a temporary muggle repelling charm as well as a stasis charm on the room. He would keep it as evidence against Dumbledore if he tried to stick him this hell-hole again.

He conjured a bowl and a pedestal in the middle of the room and cast a small severing curse. He let out a small gasp of pain as the curse cut open the artery in his wrist. Harry held his bleeding wrist over the bowl. He bit his lip in discomfort as blood slowly filled into the bowl. When the bowl was full, Harry healed the wound with his finger.

That should fool the blood wards enough for the rest of the summer. The blood wards were based off of blood, of course , so since his blood was here even if he wasn't, the wards would continue to recharge and Dumbledore wouldn't be tipped off about his disappearance. Now to convince the Dursleys to cover for him. Harry smiled at that thought and disappeared in a flash of flame.

A few minutes later and another flash of fire, Harry returned to the Dursley household with a large man covered in bandages. Harry levitated the man onto the couch in the living room and put him in a body bind as well as Silencing him.

"Hello, uncle. Now that you're here, the family's complete. Would you mind calling them for a family meeting."

Vernon's eyes blazed with anger and even under the bandages Harry could see the man's face turn an ugly shade of purple. Harry lifted the silencing charm and his uncle's voice filled the house.

"How dare you drag me from the hospital when it was your fault I landed in there in the first place? FREAK, you should be thankful I gave you a roof over your head and clothes on your back and this is how you repay me."

Attracted by the sound of Vernon's voice, Petunia came out of the bathroom where she was vomiting and Dudley came out of his room where he was playing video games. They walked downstairs and into the living room. Petunia noticed her bandage swathed husband sitting on the couch

"What are you doing here, dear? Shouldn't you be in the hospital?"

"Actually, Aunt. I've called a family meeting and without dear Vernon, the family isn't complete. So I took care of that and brought him home early." said Harry as he stepped out the shadow where he was waiting.

Petunia turned white as a sheet and turned around.

"I-I killed y-y-you. I w-watched y-you die, half of your face was gone." stuttered Petunia.

"I guess it didn't work, then. Please sit down and bring your precious Dudders with you."

"I'm not listening to you, freak." said Dudley as tried to punch Harry.

Harry smoothly dodged it and stunned Dudley.

"Any other objections? No? Good. "

Harry stunned Vernon and Petunia and healed Vernon of his burns. He never liked tampering with people's minds but he would make an exception as of now. Harry quickly modified their minds. The family would forget the previous hour and that Vernon was badly burnt by Braze. Harry wanted to keep his familiars a secret until it was no longer possible. He also tweaked Vernon and Petunia's mind so they would believe they locked him in his room for the rest of the summer. Dudley had a compulsion to do the chores Harry normally did. Harry wiped his hands to try and get rid of the nasty feel of their minds.

Good, the rest of his summer would be spent far, far away from 4 Privet Drive and Dumbledore would hopefully never know. He only wished he had a camera to see the faces of Vernon and Petunia when their son starts to weed the garden and cook breakfast.

Harry flamed back into his room and packed his meager belongings. His father's cloak? Check. His Firebolt? Check. His parent's photo album? Check. There all the things he actually cared about are packed. Now the things he didn't care for but still needed. His school trunk with his school supplies? Check. His oversized clothes and robes? Check. All done. Now to wake up his familiars.

He grinned and conjured three cream pies. He levitated one cream pie in front of each familiar's face and created a sonic boom to wake them up. The prank failed miserably. Harry had levitated the pie too high for Braze's head to touch the cream pie as he was suddenly woke up. Sully only opened one eye and fell back asleep. Loreal didn't even wake up.

"Wow, that kind of failed."

_"You think? You managed to fail one of the easiest pranks. I can't wait until you move on to the harder pranks." _said Braze.

Harry tried to copy Snape's scowl but failed miserably.

"Be quiet, you couldn't do any better."

Braze just grinned while Harry went to grab his trunk. When Harry's back was turned, Braze grabbed one of the cream pies and forcibly slammed it onto Loreal's head.

She woke up with an ear piercing screech and looked around the room with anger. Her eyes met that of Harry's and she launched herself at him. Harry yelped in pain as her claws scratched his shirt into tatters. With a huff, she flew back to the bed and fell asleep.

"What the bloody hell was that for?"

Braze coughed and grinned when Harry looked at him.

_"I guess I did do better. "_

Harry tried to scowl again with marginally better success. He shrunk his belongings and put it into his pants pocket. With a wave of his hand he changed his appearance. Harry now had spiky strawberry blonde hair with deep blue eyes. The scar had disappeared under glamour and Harry transfigured the glasses and glasses lenses into a square shape instead of his normal black round ones. With another gesture, he raised his cheekbones and cast a slight hair growing charm on his chin to produce a small stubble. There, nobody would recognize him now. He then put his strongest disillusionment charm on his familiars.

"Come on, Braze. You grab Loreal and I'll grab Sully. We're flaming towards a place called the Three Broomsticks."

Harry mentally showed Braze an image through the familiar bond and they both flamed away.

#############

Both of them appeared in front of the fireplace in a flash of fire. Nobody seemed to notice because they assumed he had flooed in instead of flaming in. Harry walked over to the counter at the back where Madame Rosmerta was filling up mugs with Firewhiskey.

"Excuse me, ma'am. May I room here for a while?"

"I've heard your voice somewhere before. Do I know you?"

Harry inwardly cursed. He seemed to be popular enough for people to know what he sounded like. He quietly deepened his voice a bit with a bit of wandless magic before replying.

"I don't believe you do, Madame..."

"It's Rosmerta. I didn't seem to catch your name."

"Its um Sebastian ugh Todd."

"Well then Sebastian Todd. You're quite easy on the eyes. Do you have a wedding ring hidden anywhere? Hmm?"

Harry, no Sebastian, blushed. This was wrong, she was way older than him. It would be like dating Professor McGonagall.

"No, I'm not married. I just a room to stay in."

"Well okay but if you ever need a Mrs. Todd. You know where to find me."

She laughed as she saw Harry blush even in the dim light.

"Lighten up. I'm only teasing. Besides, you're a bit young for my taste. Would like the standard single room?"

"Umm, sure."

"Okay, follow me and I'll show you to your rooms. Henry, take care of the drinks and food. I'm showing a customer to his rooms."

A man who was serving drinks, presumably Henry, nodded and Rosmerta led Harry up the winding staircase in the middle of the pub. Harry levitated his trunk behind him and his familiars hitched a ride on the trunk.

"So, I haven't seen you before. Believe me, I would have remembered you. It's really easy with that handsome face of yours."

Harry blushed again. This was awkward at best. The face, Rosmerta was fawning over wasn't even his own. He felt slightly guilty over deceiving the generous innkeeper.

"Ok, Sebastian. This is your room, 13A. Go on in and get settled. Lodgings would be 2 galleons a night. 3 galleons if you want three meals a day along with your lodgings. "

"About that. I still need to go get money from Gringotts. Is it okay if pay you after I visit Gringotts."

"I usually don't let customers do that. Some people stay here and then run. Not very good for business after all. But just because you were so polite and have such a pretty face, I'll let you do that. If you betray my trust, I'll hunt you down and rip off your dick and shove it down your throat."

Harry backed up at the angry expression on Rosmerta's face. He had no doubts that she would carry out her threat. Her expression changed suddenly to the friendly, cheerful expression she normally wore.

"I hope you don't betray the trust I've given you. Enjoy your room. If you want dinner, then it's at six."

Harry thanked for Rosmerta and examined his room. It quite tidy and clean. There was a small bed in the far right corner with a small lamp next to it. There was a desk with a mirror on the wall opposite to the bed. The bathroom was located in to the side of the doorway Harry was standing in. Cozy.

He levitated his trunk to the foot of the bed and cancelled the disillusionment charm on his familiars.

"You guys okay?"

_"I'm fine. Loreal still snoozing. Sully's awake and he said his headache was gone."_

"Okay. I'm going to Gringotts to get some gold to cover the cost of our room. Don't burn the inn while I'm gone."

He wanted to ward his room before leaving. There were two types of wards. Spell wards were wards cast using a wand. They were temporary and the weakest wards. Runic wards were wards produced as a result of runes. The runes were etched into a material that could conduit magical energy. They are the strongest and hardest to make.

Harry conjured a small cube and a chisel. He etched protection and privacy wards on the cube as well the rune set that would keep the wards charged. Merlin was quite good at runes and warding and had transferred all his knowledge and memories to Harry. He had a headache after the memory transfers but after sifting through Merlin's memories, Harry had decided that a headache was a small price to pay.

He charged the runes with a bit of pure magic and donned his cloak. He pulled the hood over his head and flamed to a small dark alley next to the Gringotts building. He walked up the marble staircases and waited in line until a goblin teller was open.

"I would like to access my vault please."

"Your name?"

"Harry James Potter."

"Ah, yes, Mr. Potter. Gringotts was expecting your arrival. The head of the London brand of Gringotts wants to speak to you."

Harry followed the goblin down twisting corridors and hallways until they stopped in front of a large golden door. The goblin quickly conversed with the two goblin warriors guarding the door and the warriors let them in.

The office was luxurious with bookcases lining the side of the walls. In the middle of the room sat a goblin flanked by two more guards and other goblins.

"Welcome, Mr. Potter. Please sit down. We have business to discuss. "

The goblin pulled out a slim folder and opened it. Inside the folder there so many other folders that Harry wondered the original folder was bulging to the point of breaking.

"I can see that you're curious about the folders. Each folder has an internal space enlargement so it can hold more papers or folders. When you open the folder, the space enlargement temporarily stops and you can see the full content of the folder."

"Now, we have detected that you have come into your magical inheritance. By wizarding laws you are now an adult with all the privileges that come with it."

The goblin rummaged through the large stack of folders and pulled out one.

"Since you are the heir of the Ancient and Noble House of Potter, you now control all of the assets the Potter family have accumulated over the centuries. You have two vaults that contain all of the material wealth. There are multiple properties that you now own in almost every major city both Muggle and Wizard as well as unplottable properties. Please review the contents of these folders before I'll continue."

Harry slowly opened the folder and watched a stack of papers. He slowly close the folder and watched as the papers seemed to sink into the bottom of the folder. This was cool.

The head goblin coughed and Harry turned to the task of reading the whole folder.

Being a Master Occlumens had its perks. Harry had a perfect memory and reading books seemed much easier. He could skim the book and while he was skimming, inside his head he would mentally digesting the knowledge. He had tested it out on Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and had finished the book in about 10 minutes. Hermione would be so jealous if she learned about this.

Harry's eyes bulged as he finished skimming the folder. He had two vaults, a trust vault set up by his parents and the main Potter vault. In gold, he had over a nine billion galleons total. Since the Potter Family was one of the first 100 vaults, the interest rate was amazing. Harry could go on a shopping spree and spend only the interest he gained this month.

He opened the second folder and watched more paper appear. He quickly skimmed through the stack and closed the folder in even more amazement. He owned shares of a lot of companies. He owned a 11% share of the Firebolt broom company and a 23% share of Nimbus. He was sure he owned a share of every store in Diagon Alley.

"Okay. I'm done reading the folders."

The goblin looked up from the paperwork he was doing in surprise.

"That was remarkably fast. I thought it would take the rest of the afternoon for you finish reading those files. Here is a folder of the Potter properties and the Potter family ring. To go to any of these properties, say Go to followed by either the address of the property or the name of the property."

Harry took the folder and the Potter Family Ring the goblin handed to him and read through the list of properties. There was everything from unplottable estates to penthouses. He liked the sound of the mansion in Glasgow and there was a small cottage under the Fidelius in Surrey of all places. Harry thought about it and decided to continue to live at the Three Broomsticks. After all, he could afford it and he wanted to get to know people who didn't see him for his fame.

Harry slipped on the Potter Family and examined it. It was completely gold and the Potter family crest, a griffin and a nundu standing on two legs on either side of a shield, was on the face of the ring.

"With the family ring on, you have protection against most jinxes and hexes. The ring will be hidden unless you want it to be visible. The ring will also comes with the prestige of being the Head of the Ancient and Noble House of Potter. You will also be expected to attend Wizengamot meetings as Lord Potter. Since you managed to purvey the Potter account so quickly, I would suggest you take some time to review the rest of your accounts."

"I have more?"

"Yes it seems like you are now the Head of the Gryffindor and Emyrs Families, though one person isn't much of a family. Most of the Gryffindor Family died out in the War with Grindewald and the only member of the Emyrs Family was Merlin and his wife Nimue. Here are the folders detailing the properties, investments and monies. "

Harry flipped through the folders. After reading it he sat back and digested the information. To the best of his knowledge, Merlin never started a vault with Gringotts. The only money he had ever given a goblin was a galleon.

"Excuse me. What was the starting amount for the Emyrs vault?"

"A galleon. The first galleon ever to be stored in a Gringotts vault."

Wow, wait until Merlin hears this. The galleon he gave to a goblin was put into a bank with interest rates. His one galleon had turned to over a billion galleons after gaining interest for a two millennia. Merlin's Tower was the only property in the Emyrs Family. The goblin handed Harry another box with a ring in it.

The Gryffindor account had about 29 million galleons as well as other investments in other companies. Harry was sure most of these companies went out of business but he noticed some of the companies that survived the years. The Daily Prophet seemed to be one of them, with a share of 23%. There were a few other shops that he now had a share of. The goblin discreetly coughed to gain Harry's attention.

" There is a seat for the Head of the Emyrs Family as well as another ring. The Emyrs Family Ring isn't much of a Family ring more so than Merlin's personal ring. The properties of the ring are unknown though."

Harry knew exactly what the ring did, another perk of having all of Merlin's memories. With enough time and resources, Harry could have reproduced the ring right down the magical properties. Merlin's ring was another magical foci that he could channel magic through. The fire opal that set on top the ring could store magic. There seemed to be no limit to the magic it could contain.

He put the ring and admired the specks of gold that were in the shape of a phoenix. Harry channeled magic into the ring and watched it glow briefly. The only drawback to wearing the ring was that he couldn't use Mage Sight anywhere near it. There was so much magical energy that Merlin had stored in it that it glowed brighter than the sun under Mage Sight.

The goblin handed another folder to Harry as well as another ring box.

"The Gryffindor Ring is substantially more powerful than the Potter Ring. The ring was infused with phoenix tears while it was being made. Due to the amount of phoenix tears infused into the ring, any person who has malicious intents will feel uncomfortable in your presence to the point where they can't bear to be near you. The ring can also block the effects of compulsions and most mind-related potions."

The Gryffindor Ring had a gold setting with the Family crest on the face of the ring. The crest was of course a griffon with a diamond as its eye.

"The Gryffindor Family also has a seat on the Wizengamot but all three of your seats on the Wizengamot are held in proxy by various other people in the Wizengamot. They all believe they are the closet in blood to the Families but none of the people were accepted by the family rings."

"Accepted?"

"Yes, if you weren't directly related to those families, the ring would have burnt off your finger. I didn't want to forgot to tell you this information but since the rings clearly have accepted you, it doesn't matter."

Harry's feelings alternated between shock that his finger might have been burnt off and disbelief that the goblin "forgot" to mention it.

"Are done yet Mr. Potter? I have other things to do."

"Ah, yes. Can I visit my vault?"

"Which one?"

Harry drew a blank until he remembered. Right, he had three vaults.

"Um, how about the Potter vault."

The head goblin gestured towards one of the other goblins in the room.

"Lead Mr. Potter to Vault 37."

"Thank you for your time, Ragnok. When the bank teller said I would meet the Head of Gringotts, I didn't think I would meet the puppet not the real one. "

Harry left the goblin with his jaw on the floor with a smirk.

The goblin led Harry to the cart that would take them into the depths of Hogwarts. Harry grinned widely as he enjoyed the rapid tosses and turns of the cart. Suddenly he got soaked in water.

"What the hell?"

The goblin driving the cart only smirked in response and drove faster.

Harry scowled and dried himself wandlessly. Stupid arrogant goblins. Not even a drop of water got on the cart and the goblin. He muttered some more profanities under his breath.

The vault numbers decreased slowly until they reached vault number 37.

"Press your hand against the door and a sample of your blood will be taken for verification that you are the Head of the Potter Family."

Harry pressed his hand against the enormous vault door and gasped in pain as a small needle was jammed into his hand. The needle withdrew and the vault door slowly opened. Harry glared at the goblin who was laughing at him.

Harry mumbled profanities under his breath as he walked into the Potter vault. He stared in shock as he looked around the vault. There were stacks of gold that reached the ceiling, which given the extreme height of the vault that was saying something. He stuffed his bag full of gold and vowed to explore all of vaults the next time he had time. He had spent longer than he had planned to at Gringotts. He just hoped the inn was burned down when he got back.

He got off the cart shakily. Maybe asking the goblin if the cart could go faster wasn't the smartest idea. At least it was fun. He made his way out of the main door of Gringotts, oblivious to the stares he garnering.

Everybody at Gringotts was staring at Harry. When he walked out of the bank, an old couple stopped their gossiping and stared as well.

Rita Skeeter was wandering around Diagon Alley looking for her next scoop. She just happened to walk by Gringotts when she saw something that immediately grabbed her attention. She walked briskly, good reporters should never be seen running, towards Gringotts to get her next story.

Harry still didn't find anything unusual about the people staring at him. Frankly he wasn't that observant regarding other people. He kept on walking until Rita Skeeter stopped in front of him and pulled out her Quick-Quotes Quill and parchment.

"Well, Harry Potter. You're a rare sight out in public during the summer. What brings you out of seclusion?"

What? How did she know it was him? Nobody at the inn recognized him as Harry Potter because he disguised himself. Harry quickly conjured a mirror and looked into it. Bright green eyes stared out of the mirror.

Oh no what happened to his disguise. A discreet cough from Rita dragged Harry out of his thoughts.

"Harry Potter just conjured a mirror without using a wand. Wandless magic is so difficult that levitating objects is hard for the average witch or wizard. The Boy-Who-Lived just managed to do wandless magic without even trying. He must be very powerful. Would you like to say anything about this, Harry?"

Rita's quill scratched across the parchment as it recorded her commentary. Harry only muttered a slight sorry before blinding everybody with a bright light.

When everybody regained their vision, Harry Potter was no longer there anymore.

Harry appeared in his inn in a flash of fire. That was close. He hoped that Rita didn't have enough information to write an article in the Daily Prophet. If she did, then Dumbledore would be sure to drag him back to the Dursleys.

He angrily threw his cloak on the ground and walked over to the mirror. He changed his appearance back to that of Sebastian Todd's. What had gone wrong? He didn't feel any spells hit him that might have cancelled the glamour he had cast over himself. He channeled more power into the glamour to make sure it stayed.

_"What happened at the bank, you look pissed?" _asked Braze.

"My glamour somehow failed and when I walked out of the bank, Rita Skeeter just happened to be nearby for an interview. "

_"Did you go to your vault?" _

"Of course, where else would I get galleons from, the ground?"

_"Stop being so snarky. I'm just trying to help. The goblins have many defense measures in place for guard against theft. One of the most potent defense is the Thief's Downfall."_

"And that matters because?"

_"It's a waterfall that cancels all enchantments. The goblins usually don't activate that defensive measure unless there's a thief. Most customers of theirs don't like their expensive charms being cancelled out."_

Meanwhile at Gringotts

Ragnok smirked as he received the report from the goblin who escorted Harry to his vault. He wished he was there when Harry found out his glamour was cancelled. Nobody was supposed to know his name. He purposely shrouded his identity in anonymity for the last 50 years for a reason.

Some people thought that magical creatures like goblins weren't "fit" to have control of "wizard" gold so they thought they would make a statement by killing the head of Gringotts. After 20 failed murder attempts and 13 kidnapping attempts, Ragnok was fed up with it. He was one of the best warriors in the goblin nation, he didn't like killing people who were on a suicide mission. He pretended to die and took a sabbatical where he spent the time removing the memory of his existence from most of England and sometimes their hearts if they knew Occlumency.

After that, he placed another puppet on the seat of Head of Gringotts and controlled the internal workings of Gringotts from the shadows. The puppet he had placed as Head of Gringotts had to go to a meeting with the Head of the different branches of Gringotts, so Ragnok had to handle introducing the Potter boy to his three new titles; Lord Emyrs, Lord Gryffindor and Lord Potter. He didn't trust anybody else to handle this matter so he did it himself. Somehow the boy knew who he was and rubbed it in his face.

Brat. In return, Ragnok had activated the Thief's Downfall and chose the only cart which was powered by runes instead of the normal charm powered ones. Since the Potter boy revealed his identity, he would do the same. He needed to arrange meeting with Harry Potter again. This time the meeting would be to discuss more sensitive matters with the boy.

"Eat up. You look thin as a rail. Here take some of more pot roast, it might put some meat on you."

Madame Rosmerta put more pot roast on his already full plate and shushed his protests of having too much food. This was more food than he had ever eaten, even at Hogwarts. Harry dug into the large pile of food and moaned quietly how good it was.

"This is very good, even better than Hogwart's food."

"Glad you think so. I cooked it myself, just for you even though my house elf is giving me an evil glare for doing so."

Harry's cheek's turned slightly red at that statement. Even when he was the Boy-Who-Lived, nobody cared about him that much, they just kissed up to him.

"Thank you. How do I repay you for that?"

"Well...you can stay here for a few more days, maybe work for me. I'm not cheap, wages aren't that bad. " she said, fluttering her eyes.

He thought about it for a few seconds. He was experiencing living without fame, getting a job was part of that right? After all with the fame he had, the public would go crazy if he took a real job, might as well experience it now.

"Um, sure. When do I start?"

"Whenever you want to, sweetie. I'm always in need of an extra hand."

"Ok, um, thank you. Oh and here is my payment for the room and meals."

Harry handed Rosmerta three galleons. She took them and secreted them somewhere under the bar counter.

"That should cover your stay until tomorrow and your breakfast and lunch if you choose to eat here. I do hope you stay longer though."

Harry ate the rest of his meal and made small talk with the inn keeper while she was taking break between serving the rest of her customers.

"I need to go back to my rooms. It's been a long day and I need some rest. I'll see you tomorrow."

"Ok darling. Good night."

Harry walked up to his room. He had found a job and a person who didn't see him as the boy-who-lived as a friend, kind of.

"Do you guys need anything to eat? I just finished with dinner."

_"Nope I don't eat food. Just start a magical fire in the fireplace before you go to sleep tonight. It's been awhile since I've been in a fire and I'm a bit tired. Being in a fire is the fire salamander way of eating."_

Harry nodded and conjured phoenix fire into the fireplace as well as a few logs. There were three main types of fire. The Light type of fire, phoenix fire, was fire that could only harm those who were evil in nature. Phoenix fire could also heal and comfort those who weren't evil. The Dark type of fire was fiendfyre. It's only purpose was to destroy and consume it's victims. The Gray type of fire was just fire, the type Muggles used in their fireplaces. It was neither Dark nor Light.

Braze flamed into the fire and sighed contently before falling asleep. Phoenix fire was next to impossible to put out since it didn't need to consume fire to keep on burning and it technically couldn't kill anybody.

"What about you guys?"

_"Fine. I ate a deer. Good night." _said Sully before hopping on top of the bed and falling asleep.

_"It's fine, dear. We can mostly take of ourselves. I went hunting for food earlier while you were at the bank. Have a good night Harry."_

Loreal flew into the fireplace and perched on one of the logs. She promptly fell asleep too.

Harry watched all them all asleep with small smile before preparing to fall asleep too. He cleaned his teeth with magic and took another hot shower. Ah, the second hot shower of the summer. Life seemed good at the moment. He carefully folded up his best robe and cloak, which to everybody else seemed to be normal clothing but Harry never had the time or money to buy better robes or any need to. Harry grimaced at the thought of going shopping.

He crawled into the covers and turned off the lights. Harry fell asleep with a smile on his face and dreamed of nothing.

**A/n;** The goblins aren't supposed to be randomly giving out their trust to the first person that's kind to them. Harry has to earn their respect and trust. The rest of Harry's summer is in the next chapter.

johnjohn: Sorry, you better stop reading now. It's going to be slash. Still, stop being so homophobic.

jessierose85: I'm not sure who Hermione might be paired up. It definitely won't be Ron though. Do you want it to be up to you? I'm up to suggestions.


	9. Harry's Summer

**Chapter 9-Harry's Summer**

Warnings: swearing, nothing too Sirius

**I OWN NOTHING **

August 3,1944

Harry smiled as he served Firewhiskeys to a group of chatting wizards. Working for Madame Rosmerta was fun. He liked that he could spill a drop of Firewhiskey and not have bruise marks running up and down his back.

"Ok, that was the last of the drinks. Do you have anything else you want me to do?"

Madame Rosmerta looked up from where she was doing the crossword puzzle in the Daily Prophet. Harry insisted on doing everything on his first day so she decided to relax for the day.

"Well, that group of wizards looks like they're the last ones here. How about you help me clean up and you can call it a day?"

Harry nodded and pulled out his wand. It wasn't his real wand of course. That wand still had the Trace on it and if he did magic with it, the underage magic police would find out. Instead he used a random oak stick he found on the ground. He just pretended to wave it around and used his wandless magic.

A few waves of his wand and some subtle gestures of his hand later the inn/pub was clean as a whistle. Harry stood back and admired his handy work. Wandless magic was different from wand magic. Harry just had to direct his magic where to go and visualized the effect. He wasn't sure if the definition of wandless magic had changed over the years.

"Ok, Sebastian. I think I can handle the pub for the rest of the night. Go out and have some fun. You've been working constantly the whole day."

Harry shrugged reluctantly and donned his cloak. He walked around Hogsmeade until he found a deserted alley and flamed away to Diagon Alley. Shopping time.

He walked into Madame Malkin's Robes and waited patiently for the young teenager at the front desk to take notice of him. After a few minutes of watching her pore over the latest Witch Weekly magazine, he finally tried to get her attention another way.

"Umm, excuse me. Excuse me. Hello?"

The girl looked up from her magazine.

"Oh, crap. Are here for robes? How long have you been standing there? Please don't say longer than a minute. Were you standing here for longer than a minute? No wait. It doesn't matter. Just don't tell my mum you've been waiting here so long. She'll get so mad. The last time a customer waited too long she almost spanked me in front of the customer. Oh, no here she comes. Quick pretend like you just go here."

Harry just stood there with a slightly confused look on his face when a short stout woman walked up to the counter.

"Liza, have you been messing with the customers again?"

"No, mum. He just got here. I wouldn't even have time to mess with him."

"Really, then why does he have that dazed expression that always comes with a minute of conversation with you?"

"Mum, stop you're embarrassing me in front of him." she said as she looked over Harry.

Madam Malkin ignored her daughter and turned her attention towards Harry.

"Now, what can I do for you?"

"I would like some robes."

She ushered Harry onto a platform and sent a magic measuring tape to take measurements of his body. The measuring tape circled around various parts of his body

"Spread your arms out and hold still. Now what type of robes? How many robes?"

"I would like a full wardrobe of normal everyday robes and three formal ones."

The robe maker hummed in thought as she received the results of the measurements.

"Let's see. " There's a clothing manual on that desk over there. Pick out the style and color of robes you want. There's plenty to choose from. There's also an enchanted color wheel next to the manual. Just hold it in front of your face and it'll match you up with the colors that will look good on you. Write down the color and the id number next to the robe styles in the manual. I'll be back in a few minutes. I hear another customer coming in."

Harry gladly stepped off the platform and shook off a few of the cramps he got from holding still so long. There might be a slight problem. His real face was probably different enough from his glamoured one that it would affect the robe color. He looked around and dropped the glamour.

He held the enchanted color wheel in front of his face. The wheel started to spin and after a few minutes it stopped. Different colors on the wheel were illuminated. Interesting now on to the robe styles.

After poring through the manual and choosing some robe styles, Madam Malkin came back.

"Hello again. Sorry I took so long. Have you decided your robes yet?"

Harry wordlessly handed her the parchment with what he wanted on it.

"I see. Are you sure about the colors? I don't think forest green looks good on you. The black ones might thought. "

"I'm sure. It's okay."

" If you say so. Your robes will be done next week. You can see if they fit and such afterwards. I think that the standard heating and cooling charms are in order. I'm going to include some fitting charms to allow some growth or shrinking. Okay that's it. I'll see you next week so you can pick up your robes. You can pay me if you like them."

Harry all but took off from the store. Clothes shopping was easier in the wizarding world, much easier but it was an experience he could go without. Next stop would be for him to replace his school trunk. It was getting kind of tattered. Maybe his vaults had something. He did want to explore them.

After another thrilling cart ride, he arrived at the Potter Vault. This time he didn't get soaked with the Thief's Downfall. The same goblin as last time was escorting him to his vault. Harry gave him the evil eye and pressed his palm against the vault door. The door swung open without the blood withdrawal Harry was expecting.

Harry walked past the enormous stacks of gold galleons to see what was behind them. The gold piles started to thin out and he saw what else was in the vault. Behind the stacks of gold w

There were rows and rows of weapons that were so fine that they had to be goblin-made. Harry admired some of them and tested out a few. None of them felt as right as his flamberge did. His sword was hidden in a fold of reality that allowed Harry to access it whenever he needed to.

He reluctantly parted from the weapons rack and examined the rest of the vault. There were so many items in his vault. Some of them he didn't even recognize. He grabbed a small green money pouch and watched it shrink and expand like it was breathing. Mokeskin pouches were rare. They were the skin of a lizard that could shrink and expand at will. They had an almost limitless capacity and shrunk whenever somebody other than the owner touched the pouch.

He walked around and found trunks. This was better than Diagon Alley and he didn't have to pay a sickle to get new things. Well relatively new and there was slight fee for accessing his vault. He purveyed the trunks one at time.

There were multiple normal trunks. There were trunks with space enhancement charms on the inside. There was this one unique trunk that had multiple compartments. There were red ones and one that had carvings all over it.

He stopped in front of a black trunk that shimmered under the light. It felt cool under his touch and without warning a needle was stabbed into his palm. He immediately drew his hand away from the trunk.

"Ouch, son of a banshee. What was that?"

Harry put his hand back onto the trunk and watched in amazement as the top of the trunk shimmered and disappeared. Underneath the top of the trunk there were 13 buttons. He tentatively pushed one of the buttons and hissed in pain as another needle stabbed his finger. Damn blood protection and those stupid needles.

With a small hiss the button panel shimmered and disappeared too. In its place a step of stairs appeared. Harry peered into the trunk and walked down the flight of stairs. He couldn't help himself but let out a gasp of pure shock. There was a library in this trunk. Well at least the bookcases, all of the shelves were empty. There was this one book that said Registry on a pedestal in front of the stairs.

He mentally added books to his shopping list and climbed back up the steps. 11 more drops of blood later and Harry had explored the rest of the buttons. He probably had enough room to live in it instead of his room at the Three Broomsticks.

Harry shrunk the trunk and put it into his mokeskin pouch. The goblin leered at him before driving the cart back up.

The goblin stared at the person in the back seat of the car. The Head of Gringotts had taken an unhealthy interest in him, unhealthy for the person of course. The bank workers were under orders to let the Potter boy go to his vault then escort him for a meeting with Ragnok.

The cart slowed down and Harry stared at a goblin warrior platoon. What did he do this time?

"Excuse, Mr. Potter. We have standing orders to escort you."

"No, it's fine. I can find my way out of the bank easily by myself."

"You misunderstood us. We're escorting you to Ragnok's office."

Harry reluctantly followed the goblin. He didn't want to get on the bad side of the goblins. After all they controlled all of his gold. The goblins led him to the same gold double doors as last time.

"Come, Mr. Potter. I'm glad you can join us."

He sat down and eyed the two goblins on the other side of the desk.

"The goblin sitting to my right is Griphook. He is the Head of all the branches of Gringotts."

"Aren't you the goblin that led me to my vault for the first time?"

"Yes. I got a promotion. The last Head drank a cup of poison so Ragnok suggested that I become the next Head."

"You can do that?" Harry asked Ragnok.

"And much more. I am the de facto Head of Gringotts. Griphook is the de jure Head of Gringotts. The previous Dark Lords were against the rights of magical creatures and wanted to make a statement by killing the Head of Gringotts. I've had over a century of experience being the Head of Gringotts and this job is too demanding for a goblin who is new to the job. The last dozen goblins who held this job have all been murdered. You could have compromised my identity if our meeting hadn't taken place in a heavily warded office. "

"That doesn't give you the right to compromise my identity. "

Ragnok only grinned and showed Harry all of his sharp canines.

"Yes it does. The Goblin Nation swears by the rules of revenge. You compromise my identity and I'll compromise yours. Tell me, how did you find out who I was?"

This time Harry grinned and showed Ragnok him all of his... well four...relatively sharp.. canines.

"I used Legilimency on you."

"Impossible. Goblins are immune to mind magic." roared Ragnok as well as most of the goblin warriors who stayed around to watch the show.

Harry only smirked in response.

"It is possible but it takes more power than most witches and wizards have available. Think of it me using a jackhammer to break into your mind instead of the normal spoon everybody else uses."

"How much power do you use? If word gets out that you can use Legilimency on goblins, then we would multiple wizard and witches trying to use Legilimency on us. Then we would kill them for trying and then I would have more paperwork to do."

Harry started to wonder if he should be worried that the goblins were more concerned about paperwork than killing wizards.

"I'm not sure, but if only I can do it I think you'll be fine."

"Good, since you know one of Gringott's secrets, we can't treat you like the other Gringotts customers. You know too much even though you know only one of our secrets."

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?" said Harry weakly.

"You're going to have to sign this non-disclosure statement that all of our employees sign. "

Harry read over the parchment that Griphook handed to him. It just stated that he would not share any Gringotts secrets to anybody even other employees. Easily done.

Ragnok handed him a quill.

"Where's the ink?"

"Ah, that's a blood quill. You use your blood to sign the parchment. Makes the contract more binding."

Harry reluctantly used the blood quill to sign his signature onto the parchment. He ignored the sharp sting in his hand as the quill cut his name onto the top of his hand.

"Thank you, Mr. Potter. Shinbreaker, give our newest employee some dittany to heal the effects of the blood quill."

"Employee?" said Harry in a slightly shrill voice.

"Yes, the contract says that that you won't divulge information during your work at Gringotts as an employee. Since you signed, you are now an employee of Gringotts."

The goblins in the room grinned victoriously while the only human in the room scowled at everybody else.

He angrily grabbed the dittany a goblin handed him and gently dabbed it on the wound on the back of his hand. Stupid goblins coercing him into working for them.

The dittany soothed the slight ache and healed the markings the blood quill made. Harry let out an audible sigh of relief. He could have used magic to heal it but why bother when he was offered dittany.

"So, what's my job at Gringotts?"

"Since you have enough magical power to read the mind of a goblin, we'll contact you if we are need of magical power. The jobs will vary we'll contact you by owl. Your salary will also depend on the job. You're dismissed Mr. Potter."

Harry left the office grumbling about shifty goblins and included some words colorful enough to be in the Gay Pride parade. He returned to the same dark alley and flamed back to his room at the Three Broomsticks to get some rest.

Meanwhile at Hogwarts

Dumbledore finally got around to reading today's paper. He was busy the whole day listening to the various members of the staff complain about budget cuts from the Ministry. They shouldn't worry about money. Being the magical guardian of Harry Potter meant he could authorize money transactions to his muggle guardians. He could take a small cut of that money for use of the Greater Good.

He flipped open the front page and read the latest pureblood scandal. His eyes moved down the last article on the front page and his good mood was promptly stabbed with a knife, repeatedly.

_"Boy-Who-Lived Makes Rare Summer Appearance"_

That's impossible. The Dursleys should have been keeping him under lock and key. Then the Weasley Family would win tickets to the World Cup, for the whole family including a random extra ticket. They would bring Harry along and he would be so grateful to them that his loyalties would be with them. Of course Dumbledore didn't manipulate the contest for his personal gain. (cough cough)

He finished scanning the article and hoped to Merlin that it was a Polyjuice copy of Harry instead of the real one. The article said that he conjured a mirror wandlessly, something only an above ordinary wizard could do. Not something a wizard with bindings on magic should be able to do.

He would visit the Dursleys to confirm that the boy was still at their house. That could wait until tomorrow. He didn't have any lemon drops today and he needed to catch up on lost time.

Fawkes watched the wizard he was bonded to with baleful eyes. He wanted to make a difference in the Wizarding World so he bonded with the man he thought would become the next Light Lord. Fawkes had made a mistake though. The wizard was tainted by his love for power and instead became obsessed with it.

Dumbledore had strengthened the familiar bond into chains and bound the phoenix to him. Despite Fawkes's best effort to break the familiar bond, it still connected him firmly to the wizard. He had blocked Dumbledore out of his mind but the wizard still pretended that he could communicate with him. Maybe he should have listened to his mate when she warned him against going into the Wizarding World.

August 4,1994

Dumbledore apparated at 5 Privet Drive and walked to 4 Privet Drive. He noted how clean and neat the house was. Probably due to that chubby kid who was busy weeding the garden. He knocked on the door and waited for one of the Dursleys to answer it.

Petunia was busy cooking up breakfast when she heard a knock on the door.

"I got dear. You just keep on reading your newspaper, honey."

She answered the door to an "uniquely" dressed old man. Must be one of those freaks with magic.

"Yes?" she said tersely.

"Ah, yes. I'm here to ask about where Harry is."

"The freak did something weird to our poor little Dudley and now he's stuck in his room."

"Can I see him?"

"Absolutely not. The freak is having an isolation punishment. If he gets visitors, then he wouldn't be isolated."

"You must make an exception. After all I'm his Headmaster and I'm worried about his health."

"No means no. Now the neighbors might be staring so off you go."

Dumbledore sighed. He didn't want it to come to this. He pulled out his wand and cast a slight compulsion charm on the horrid woman to make her show him Harry's room.

Petunia walked straight upstairs followed closely by Dumbledore. She spent a few minutes unlocking the locks and opened the door for Dumbledore.

"Where is he?" asked Dumbledore, slightly starting to panic.

"He was locked in this room. There was no way he could've gotten out."

Dumbledore forgo his old grandfather persona and brutally entered Petunia's mind.

He exited her mind with a grim look on his face. Her memories were tampered with. Somebody manipulated her memories to make her believe that Harry Potter was in his room. There also seemed to be memories that were destroyed. However did it were skilled enough that he couldn't restore the memories.

He growled unhappily and destroyed the memories of his visit from her mind. Either the boy was taken or Harry somehow learned mind magic and left. He hoped it was the first choice. That way the boy would still be under his thumb.

Dumbledore apparated out of the house. There were no anti-Apparition wards on the house just the flimsiest set of blood wards.

The Order of the Phoenix hadn't been restored yet since nobody else knew that Voldemort wasn't dead yet, so he didn't have a group of minions to his bidding. Darn. He would have to discretely look for Harry. Maybe attach a tracking charm on to the letter the Weasleys would should surely send to Harry informing him about their winnings.

August 14, 1994

Harry spent a couple of happy days working for the Three Broomsticks. He got paid but he still would have been happy without pay. After all he could have bought the Three Broomsticks without making a dent in his vault.

He got tips too. Some people tipped much better than others. His biggest tips were from the wizards who drank one too many Firewhiskeys. Unfortunately the tips also came with a squeeze to his bum and an attempt to kiss him.

Harry involuntarily gagged at the thought and quickened his step towards the bar to refill the mugs with Firewhiskey.

"Okay Rosmerta. I need four more Firewhiskeys."

"Coming right up, sweetie. Oh yea Madam Malkin came over a few minute ago to tell you that your robes are ready. You can stop by there after you're done with your shift."

"I have a shift?"

"Of course, nobody expects you to work the whole day."

Harry looked at the ground and shuffled his toes a bit.

"You have been working all day for the last week or so haven't you. I need to have a word with Henry. You were supposed to take the morning shift and both of you will help out during the lunch hour. He was supposed to work during lunch and until the evening. He's getting paid to do nothing."

Harry found an interesting spot on the floor and continued to examine it.

"And you. You must have worked yourself to the bone. You should have said something to me. You're eyes are bloodshot from working too much. I can't believe you didn't feel you could trust me enough to complain about working too much."

Harry continued to shuffle his feet and look away.

"Go out and relax. I'll cover your evening shift after I have a word with Henry. Go shoo."

Harry shuffled his feet towards the door. He didn't have anywhere else to go or anything else to do. He moved slower until Rosmerta fired stinging hexes at his back. He yelped and ran out of the inn.

Great now what should he do?

He wandered aimlessly around Hogsmeade until a large eagle owl bowled him over.

What the hell?

The owl stood next to him and held out its leg. There was a creamy white letter attached to its leg.

Harry reluctantly went closer to the leg of the owl which ended in inch long talons. This owl wasn't meant to carry mail, it should be on guard duty at Gringotts.

He removed the letter and read it. It looked like the goblins were in need of his special services. He was to go to Gringotts immediately after receiving the letter.

Harry sighed and flamed to Gringotts.

"Yes, what can I do for you today?" said Harry sarcastically as he approached Ragnok in his office.

"Ah, yes. There has been this incident in our Gringotts branch in Egypt. We have found a tomb of the Court Magician during the time of Cleopatra. He was said to have staved off the invading armies until he succumbed to poison. The cursebreakers under our employ couldn't break the wards so we decided that you should go help."

"What?"

"Our head cursebreaker will be there to brief you on how to break the wards. Here is the portkey. It activates by the keyword, what."

"What?"

The portkey to Cairo activated and Harry disappeared.

A few dizzying minutes of spinning in a circle later, Harry was unceremoniously deposited onto a marble floor. He sat up and promptly vomited up his lunch onto the ground.

"Hello there. I guess the portkey didn't agree with you. Here let me help you up."

Harry gladly grabbed the offered hand and pulled himself up and vanished the vomit from the floor.

"Thanks,..."

"Oh, Bill. Bill Weasley."

Harry looked up at blue eyes and then shockingly red hair. Wasn't Bill the oldest of the Weasley children?

"Hi my name is Sebastian Todd. What are you doing here?"

"I'm the Head Cursebreaker here. You must be the help the goblins sent. Follow me. I'll brief you on the way."

Harry followed Bill out of the room and into the desert. He looked back at the tent that showed no signs of having marble flooring.

"Oh that tent is the reception room for any visitors to our camp. Frankly it's the best tent out here. "

Bill led Harry to the end of the camp where a group of people were waiting for them.

"Took you long enough to get a new recruit. Come on we have a deadline to meet."

"Relax. The tomb isn't going anywhere anytime soon. The goblins insisted we try their way instead our way. Grab onto the rope Sebastian. We're taking another portkey to the tomb site."

Harry grabbed the portkey and hoped that he wouldn't vomit again as the group disappeared.

The group of cursebreakers appeared at the tomb site. Everybody but Sebastian landed on their feet.

"Wow, if his landing was anything to go by, the goblins were mistaken. He can't even stand properly let alone break a ward that we couldn't even break."

"Lay off of Sebastian, Dennis. The goblins must have a good reason why they sent him. Everybody activate the wards and whatever wards you can add to the ward stones. Pour all your magic into one of the stones. We want to be alive when the tomb is opened. Get to it."

The cursebreakers scrambled to follow his instructions. To Harry, it seemed like everybody but him knew what was going on.

"What am I supposed to do?"

"Save your energy for breaking the ward. When the rest of the team finishes, you'll have to overload the ward with as much magical power as possible. There is a high chance of magical backlash from the wards failing. Hopefully our wards can stop the backlash from killing us."

Harry gulped nervously. Magical backlash and explosions. This wasn't what he had expected when he signed the contract. Truthfully he hadn't expected working for Gringotts either.

"Well we're ready Bill. Let's see if the new boy lives up to his reputation. I got 5 galleons on the wards not falling."

Harry noticed that the person who said was the person who badmouthed him last time. He sighed, attracting bullies seemed to be one of his strong points.

The other people voiced their bets too. It seemed to be an even divide between failing and breaking down the ward.

"I'll put 10 galleons on myself on succeeding."

All eyes turned towards him.

"What? I can't bet on myself."

"Don't get to cocky kid. Lots of good cursebreakers die because they're too arrogant."

Harry only narrowed his eyes in response and activated his mage sight. He ignored the blinding white light on his hand and the blue protection wards. Behind the protection wards, there was a solid black dome that seemed solid under mage sight. The more solid-looking the ward the more power it had.

He could see why the cursebreakers had trouble with it. The last time he had seen wards these powerful was when Merlin himself created the wards for Merlin's Tower. The wards that were powered with all of the available magic of the curse breaking team didn't even hold a candle to this ward.

There seemed to be no solution to the ward without overloading it with magic. Here goes nothing.

Harry created a chisel with his magic and flung it into the ward. The chisel left a small crack in the ward. Harry put some of his magic into the crack and _expanded_ it. The crack slowly grew larger.

His eyebrows furrowed in concentration as he poured more magic into the crack. He started to get a headache from channeling that much magic and from personal experience, after a headache, magical exhaustion was sure to come in the next few seconds. The ward was beginning to crack a bit more from the pressure in the original crack.

He didn't want to draw magic from the stored magic in the ring but he had no choice. The ward was close to shattering and would break randomly in the future, somebody would be taken by surprise and die from the backlash.

He started to channel magic from the ring into his magical core. The black ward started to gain more cracks as Harry continued to channel magic into it.

A hand suddenly blocked his vision of the ward and he lost focus.

"Hello? Anybody there? Ha I told you he would fail. He already lost his mind. What a loser."

Harry growled at the interruption and blasted the man away. The person bounced off the protective ward and fell down into the sand. He didn't get back up. Nobody moved to help him though.

"Dennis was an asshole. I guess he had it coming." somebody muttered.

The ward shattered after a few more minutes of pouring magic into it. Harry was forced to turn off his mage sight as the magical backlash almost blinded him.

The wards held steady against the first few minutes of the backlash but it broke under the continued assault. The waves of backlash flung the whole group back against the nearest sand dune which happened to be a few yards back. The person Harry knocked unconscious probably didn't appreciate the second possible concussion.

Half an hour later

Harry stepped into the Gringotts in Egypt where Ragnok was waiting for him. After the ward was down, ransacking the tomb was easier than expected.

The curse breaking team called in another group of people who specialized in tomb raiding. They catalogued every nook and cranny using wizarding photos and magic. Anything in the tomb including dust were all carefully stored into separate compartments. The secrets of the tomb were methodically found and ransacked. The tomb was empty within 30 minutes.

Ragnok sent the same devil bird as before to request Harry's presence at the branch of Gringotts at Egypt. He escorted Harry into another warded office before speaking.

"The head of Gringotts was busy in a meeting so he can't make it to congratulate you on a job well done."

"Cut the act Ragnok. I know that you're the only who's really in charge. Why did you call me here for a meeting."

"So impatient. I know that you have more money than you or your possible relationships with other humans can ever spend so I propose another payment instead."

Harry's interest noticeably spiked.

"What kind of payment?"

"Knowledge of course. The information from the Egyptian scrolls are still being translated but it looks like the Court Magician was buried with all of his knowledge. I propose that you can read over all of the translated information in return for your continued cooperation with Gringotts."

Harry nodded, barely concealing his glee. Merlin ignored Egypt as a nation of bumbling idiots and instead traveled to Asia and up North. He had knowledge of ancient Eskimo spells and physical magic from Shaolin monks but no knowledge of Egyptian spells.

"Ok, the completed documents will be waiting for you the day after you get back from Egypt. Have a good day Mr. Potter."

Meanwhile back at the curse breaking camp

Bill Weasley finished penning (or quilling) his letter to his mum. She wanted weekly updates on his life in Egypt, that was the only way he could get her to agree to let him take the trip abroad.

He blew the ink dry and sent it with a Gringotts eagle owl. The eagle owl was one of the owl species that could make the round trip from Egypt and back, the Gringotts trained owls were especially tough and fast.

He kind of wished that he could talk about the Sebastian though. The man was indeed powerful. Two teams of cursebreakers couldn't pierce the ward but one man by himself could. He wondered why he hadn't heard of Sebastian before. With his power, Bill could easily see him as Minister of Magic.

Bill leaned back in his chair and silently cursed the goblins for the silence that his job entailed. He couldn't speak about anything of consequence. His letter to his mum only contained trivial things like it was hot or I miss you and such. Still he made more money than he knew what to do with.

August 15, 1994

Madam Rosmerta didn't ask where he spent his time off but she did notice the giddy look on his face.

"Good job on relaxing." she had said.

Harry couldn't wait until his morning shift was over so he could spend the rest of the day poring over ancient Egyptian spells. God, he was turning into Hermione and the scary part was that he didn't mind. Ron would have an apoplexy if he knew.

The minute the last customer left the inn during lunch hour, Harry rushed out of the door and headed to Gringotts.

A goblin escorted him to Ragnok's office which was filled with scrolls.

"Hello. Sorry about the mess. The security team for all of Gringotts were reviewing the translations yesterday and this morning. Gringotts will now be protected by archaic Egyptian spells. I trust that you won't divulge this information to anybody who would use it against us."

Harry nodded quickly and rushed over the nearest stack of scrolls. He flipped through the scrolls in each stack and moved on to the next one.

Ragnok chuckled at how fast Harry was reading the translations.

"The translated scrolls will still be here tomorrow you know. " but after tomorrow there were no guarantees on where the scrolls would be. He figured they would go into the Goblin Archives under wards and swords.

Harry only made a small noise that he heard Ragnok before moving onto another stack of scrolls. His mind was still about three stacks of scrolls behind Harry as his mind tried to process all the information. Some of the knowledge were useless such as the "latest" court gossip and some trivial statistics about crop gains.

The afternoon passed in the same fashion with Harry devouring the stacks of scrolls and Ragnok cracking various jokes about his reading speed.

Ragnok ordered one of his goblin underlings to bring them some food. Harry took a small one minute break to eat and then continued his conquest of the stacks of scrolls.

When evening came by, Harry sat down in the seat and cradled his head.

"My head hurts something awful."

Ragnok wordlessly handed him a headache potion. He suspected that Harry would try and read all of the scrolls in one day. His mind couldn't process it at the same speed he read so he would invariably get a killer headache.

Harry downed the potion and grimaced at the bad taste.

"Is there any way to make a potion taste better?"

"No, haven't you heard the saying "If you create a better tasting potion the world will beat a path to your door." The ingredients that can add a better flavor usually react explosively with the other ingredients in any potion. I have a few other things to do before retiring to my room. Have a good night Mr. Potter."

Harry watched the goblin go and promptly vomited up his dinner. He cleaned it up with a wave of his wand and vomited again, and again and again. He vanished the mess and moaned in pain. He reminded himself not to read so much before passing out.

The next morning Ragnok found the prone body of Harry Potter in his office. His glamour seemed to have fallen during the night. Without it, he looked vulnerable and young. It was a good thing he hadn't thrown the moldy sandwich in his desk yet.

He grinned and retrieved the sandwich from his desk. He held it under his nose and was pleased to get some kind of reaction from him.

Harry instantly woke up and went into the fetal position.

"Don't beat me. I'm sorry for sleeping in. Please."

Ragnok just stared at him. What kind of dream elicited that kind of reaction?

A few awkward seconds later, Harry realized where he was. He sat up and brushed some imaginary dirt off his shoulders.

"Did you hear what I said earlier?"

Ragnok mutely nodded his head. For the first time since Harry met him the goblin was speechless.

"So how about we forget that happened and move on with our lives."

The goblin shook his head. Harry sighed, he had hoped to avoid anybody learning about the abuse he had received at the Dursley household.

"Do you care to explain that statement, Mr. Potter? "

Multiple excuses ran through his head. The foremost excuse was explaining it away as a bad dream.

"It was certainly not a bad dream. I need to know anything about an employee that might affect the quality of his or her work. I also wish to know what's wrong as a...friend." he said slightly choking on the last word.

He didn't have many friends, the ones he had he could count on one hand. Most of his friends believed him to be dead and his enemies thought so too. It was a harsh but necessary sacrifice. He needed to train a successor before revealing that he was still alive. That successor was still learning the ropes.

Crap, that was possibly the best excuse. Think Harry think.

" I want the truth. One more lie and we get to test out the latest batch of Veritaserum."

"Fine, I was abused at home. Are you happy?"

Harry turned his back towards the goblin. His life at home was a touchy subject at best. Nobody knew he was in an abusive home. Hell, Snape thought he lived a luxurious lifestyle.

The goblin adopted the closet thing his kind had to a sympathizing expression, a blank face.

"I'm sorry about forcing the truth out of you. It wasn't something I should have done but it had to happen. Do you have any feelings for the people in your home?"

"Of course I do. I have warm fuzzy feelings every time I with them. The warm fuzzy feeling might be blood trickling down my back but I can't tell when they're still hitting me."

"I take that as a no. With your formal permission, I can make their lives a living hell."

"It's a start. Where do I sign?"

August 18,1994

Dumbledore apparated away from Little Surrey. He spent all of yesterday and the morning of today methodically looking through the mind of everybody who lived there. It took a while even with the use of a Time Turner but he did it. There were no signs of Harry in their memories.

The positive side was that Harry was probably captured. He couldn't have gotten very far away from Little Surrey without magic. If he did use magic then the underage magic detection part of the Ministry would send a notification to him by owl. His network in the Ministry didn't report any underage magic in the past month.

He was going to search London and Diagon Alley during the next week before school started but he couldn't shuffle through the minds of wizards. The search would just consist of identifying charms on the doorways of the stores. The charms would warn him when a specific magical signature passed through the door. He would set the charm to Potter's magical signature. He had a small container of Harry's magic for just this purpose.

Dumbledore still hoped Harry was captured so he would still be under his thumb. Harry would be even more loyal to Dumbledore if he saved him from the clutches of whoever kidnapped him. His plans were still in motion.

The best of the Beauxbaton Academy and Durmstrang Institute were going to visit Hogwarts for the Triwizard Tournament. He knew that Hogwarts had the lowest chance of winning. Their classes were all a joke when applied to real life or dueling. The staff had pushed for better curriculums but he had diverted their attention elsewhere. Only the students who studied separately, not many, actually stood a slim chance of doing well in the Tournament.

Dumbledore hoped that with the lowered security due to the visiting schools would entice Voldemort out of hiding for another chance to infiltrate the school. Truthfully that was the only reason why he had pushed so hard to allow the Tournament to be reinstated. It was taken down after the fatalities from the tasks grew too high.

Moody sent him a letter the day before. He had said that he was attacked by some Death Eaters intent on replacing with an imposter under Voldemort's orders. Sadly the attack failed. Dumbledore wished Moody was replaced with a Death Eater. Monitoring the Death Eater activities would have been much easier. Voldemort seemed to be making his move towards a corporal body this year. He knew that Voldemort would want the blood of either him or Harry Potter for the resurrection ritual. Given the circumstances, Harry would be an easier target. He hadn't planned on sacrificing Harry so soon but it was for the greater good.

Meanwhile at the Three Broomsticks

Harry still had the lingering migraine from yesterday but he still smiled and pretended like he was fine. He was used to it after all. Every beginning of the school year, he had to act like he was healthy even though he was sporting bruises and broken bones from the latest beating he had received.

The headache was still a good price to pay for the spells he had received. Magic was directed with intent. If you wanted to blow something up, you would direct your magic towards and think boom. For more complex things such as animation, manipulating his magic without a spell was similar to doing twenty digit multiplication in his head.

Some of the Egyptian spells were summoning spells. It looked like some of the mythological creatures from Egypt were based off some of these spells. There was one spell that created a mindless servant out of cloth and sand. Mummies? Another one that could summon locust swarms. Fun spells.

"Ok, Rosmerta. I'm going to go pick up some robes. Hopefully I'll be back in time to help you clean up the inn."

"Have fun, Sebastian."

Harry flamed to Diagon Alley. When he walked into Madam Malkin's Robe Store, Liza was still managing the front desk. This time she was reading the Daily Prophet.

"Um, excuse me?"

"Oh it's you again. I guess you didn't wait as long this time as last time. I'm getting better at this front desk management thing aren't I? Are you okay? You have this glazed look on your eyes again. I'm glad to see you. Most everybody else are so rude and they interrupt constantly. Are you sure you're okay? You look just as cute as last time."

With that she turned a bright shade of red and ran into .

Harry lost the dazed look on his face after a few minutes of standing there. She thought he was cute, but this wasn't his real face. It was just a glamour obscuring his real face. He felt slightly guilty about his use of the glamour but he couldn't change it now since too many people remembered his face.

He conjured himself a wooden chair and waited for her to come back.

Surprisingly he was there for half an hour before Liza came back out. Sadly she took one look at Harry and ran out of the room shrieking. By now her mother wanted to see what the commotion was about.

"Sebastian, nice to see you again. Do you have any idea why my daughter ran out of the room shrieking twice?"

"No, I'm not exactly sure. Something about thinking I'm cute."

The last statement caused Harry to blush a bit.

"Oh she'll be fine then. Come back here. I need you to try out the robes I made for you."

She ushered Harry into a fitting room and handed a few robes.

"Try these first."

Harry took off the plain black robe he had been using lately and put on one of the new robes. It was a dark forest green with golden trim. This might be one of the formal robes he had requested. The robe fit him perfectly and the heating and cooling charms were well too. Cool look's he was done here.

He walked out of the fitting room with a smile on his face. That wasn't so bad.

"That looks good on you. Try one of the everyday robes."

"But I already tried one. Isn't that enough?"

"No try all of the robes. I need to make sure all of robes are up to your expectation."

"But...but..."

"No buts, young man. Go on."

Harry sighed in disappointment and went to try on the rest of the robes.

A couple of robes later, Harry walked out of the store with his purchases. Liza hadn't shown her face the whole time and Harry felt slightly guilty about making her hide while he was trying on robes.

"Thank god you're here. Somebody decided to throw a party and decided to use my pub as the location. I've been working to the bone trying to catch up with their Firewhiskey refills and trying to serve the other customers. Here take this over there and this over there."

She directed Harry towards two tables as they rushed to deliver food and drinks. When the evening was over they both collapsed against the bar counter.

"I'm sorry you had to experience that. We don't usually allow that parties to be held here but they just walked in unannounced. The budget's been really tight this summer, without Hogwart's students Hogsmeade doesn't have many customers. I couldn't really say no to that many paying customers."

"It's okay. It was kind of fun in an exhausting type of way."

"You go on ahead and call it a day. I can handle the late night stragglers by myself. You look exhausted."

Harry chuckled and slowly made his way to his room.

Loreal was waiting for him when he opened the door.

_"Hello, sorry we haven't been around lately."_

"It's fine. I've been pretty busy the past few days."

_"Sully and Braze are searching for a safe place to rest in the Forbidden Forest right now. You wouldn't believe the amount of dangerous Dark animals you have near the school."_

"Yea I know. There's a pretty big Acromantula nest in there."

_"There are more Dark creatures in there than that. Sully thought he saw a nundu and Braze killed a Lethifold one_ _night."_

"If it's too dangerous I can sneak you guys into my dorm and you can hang out there."

_"No, your dorm mates will notice. It's hard to hide a phoenix, a hellhound and a fire salamander in your room. We'll manage. Just make sure you visit us once in a while. Good night, Harry."_

Loreal trilled a lullaby and flamed away.

August 24,1994

Dumbledore cast the tracking charm on the letter that the Weasleys sent Harry. It took little effort to intercept the owl and subdue long enough to cast the charm. The owl would lead him straight to Harry and hopefully his captors, or worst case scenario just to Harry. He let the owl go and ducked the swipe the owl took at him before flying off.

Harry was cleaning up a spilled Butterbeer when he saw Pigwidgeon, Ron's owl, fly into the inn. Oh no, he inwardly started to pray. Please not for me, please not for me. He quickly vanished the whole spill and ran out of the inn.

He looked back and still saw the owl following him. If anybody saw that owl bringing him mail then they would ask how you knew the Weasley Family. He needed to get somewhere isolated. He flamed to Little Surrey, specifically the little creek near the end of Privet Drive.

When his feet touched ground, he took out another cube from his pocket and etched runes into it. Rune sets for notice-me-not and silencing spells made their way on the cube. The normal charging runes were also on there. He activated the wards and waited for the owl to arrive. He dropped his glamour just in case somebody saw him receive the owl his made up identity would still be intact.

Dumbledore monitored the tracking charm intently. The owl made a stop in Hogsmeade before flying in the opposite direction. Interesting. Judging by the owl's flight path, it was going to Little Surrey. Harry must have been secretly hiding near 4 Privet Drive. After discerning where the owl finally landed he apparated to Little Surrey.

Harry untied the letter from Pigwidgeon's leg and opened it. It was predictably a letter from Ron. He didn't write a lot. The gist of it was that their family won tickets to the World Cup Quidditch Match and they had an extra ticket they wanted Harry to have. If he could come they would pick him up two day's time.

He could go if he wanted to, but he didn't. He liked being just the average wizard who worked days and go take a walk without people staring at him constantly. Going to the World Cup meant he had to go as Harry Potter without his cloak of average "Joe". His weighing of pros and cons were rudely interrupted by a pop.

Oh no that couldn't be an Apparition pop. How did they find him? This place by the creek was only frequented by him and the occasional hobo. He was pretty sure the hobos weren't wizards or witches.

He quickly penned a reply back to Ron on some spare parchment in his robe pocket and sent Pigwidgeon away. Hopefully whatever led the wizard to him was on the owl. He shoved Ron's letter into his pocket and flamed away to Diagon Alley.

His hope that the owl was the reason the wizard found him was dashed to pieces when another pop was heard at the end of the alley he flamed into.

"Who are you and why are you following me?"

"I just wanted to make sure you're okay. Your family was very worried that you were gone. They looked everywhere for you. Why don't you come with me back home?"

Harry's face hardened when he saw Dumbledore at the end of the alley way. The man was cunning enough. Whatever Harry said, he had to say carefully. Nothing must tip Dumbledore off that something was different about him.

"Headmaster, I was so worried. There were people and they took me away while I was on the playground. They were mean to me."

Harry ran towards Dumbledore and tackled him with a hug. He tried to limit the amount of force he put into it. It wouldn't be in his favor to kill him now.

Dumbledore awkwardly received the hug and smiled inwardly. The boy was still firmly under his thumb. The grandfatherly persona was paying off in spades. He feigned concern and patted Harry's back.

"It's okay my boy. Why don't we go back to 4 Privet Drive? Your mother's protections should keep in safe from those bad men. Hold on to me."

This time Harry was inwardly smiling. Dumbledore believed it hook line and sinker. He truly believed that Harry was under his control still.

Dumbledore apparated to 4 Privet Drive and brought Harry along using Side-Along Apparition. Harry felt himself being squeezed into a thin tube and then they appeared next to the Dursley household.

To keep with appearances, Harry stumbled a bit and fell down. He faked a headache and nausea.

Dumbledore smiled again. Harry was just kidnapped from his home. When the kidnappers saw that Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore was coming, they must have ditched the boy to save their own lives.

The bindings were luckily still in place. His magical core was a bit unstable due to the bindings since his core was still growing but it had no room grow, so it made it the core unstable. Floo and Apparition weren't very pleasant experiences to those with bound cores.

"Your family is waiting inside. I bet they want some alone time with you after that scare. I'll leave you alone. Have a good day, my boy."

Dumbledore waved good bye and incorporated a few tracking charms on Harry in that motion before apparating away.

Harry scowled furiously. He brightened a bit, his scowl was getting better though with all these bad events. He practiced his sneer. Snape and Draco must practice their facial expressions daily. Oh, well, he would try to get some facial expression practice in everyday.

He walked into 4 Privet Drive and made special care to track some mud in.

"Hello, dear family. Long time no see."

**Meanwhile at the Burrow.**

Ron waited for a reply from Harry. He was sure Harry would say yes, after all he was his only friend. That and Hermione but she was a girl so she wasn't his _best_ mate. His eyes watched a small speck slowly become larger.

There's Pigwidgeon, the only owl that would do loop-de-loops while delivering the mail. He swore he never fed Pigwidgeon any sugar but the owl still seemed jacked up on sugar.

Pigwidgeon landed on his window sill and he removed the piece of parchment tied to her leg.

Let's see here. Skip all of the niceties. Here go. _I'm sorry to say Ron that I'm too busy to go to the World Cup. Sorry mate maybe next time. _What the bloody hell. He said no to Quidditch and he didn't even say what for. It had better be something like life or death because Harry was invited to spend time with him and see Quidditch.

"Mum, Harry rejected my offer to watch the World Cup with us." he yelled.

"Okay dear. We'll invite Hermione instead. She's a nice, smart lady with habits you can learn from. Write her a letter asking her to go with us." she yelled back.

"Okay mum."

Ron got out a quill and wrote a letter to Hermione. To the untrained eye, his letter looked more like chicken scratch then real words.

_Dear Hermione,_

_Guess what my family won tickets too. You'll never believe that we got tickets to..._

August 27,1994

His "wand" was broken. No not his holly and phoenix feather wand and no not the wand in his pants. His faux oak wand snapped during one of the rare bar fights. He had knocked out the instigators of the fight but the fighting spirit was infectious so all of the drinkers, whether drunk or not, joined in. His wand was snapped when he was blocking a punch from one man while a person behind him lashed out with a kick.

Madam Rosmerta made him go get a new wand. She insisted that without one he would become prey to rapists, with his face and all. At that statement his face blushed red and he went up to his room to get his mokeskin money pouch.

"Oh hello, you guys. I thought you were mapping out the Forbidden Forest. "

_"We were. We just heard that you needed a new wand and we wanted to help you out." _said Loreal.

"Do you have a wand with you?"

_"Of course. Sully take out the spare wand we always bring with us just in case an inept wizard breaks his." _said Braze sarcastically.

Harry tried out his scowl again and laughed a bit when Sully pretended to look around on his body for a wand. Maybe Sully was only really shy.

"Geez, no need for sarcasm. What do you guys have in mind?"

_"Well you need wand cores for your new wand. The wand core has to be magical in nature and you need to have a connection with to work. As your familiars we are magical creatures and we have the closet bond a magical creature can have to a wizard, we would like to donate the parts for your wand." _explained Loreal.

Loreal extended her wing and grasped one of her primaries with her beak. With a sharp tug a beautiful golden feather was pulled loose.

Braze flamed out of the room and came back with his shed obsidian skin.

_"I need a vial."_

Harry pressed a button in his trunk and removed a vial from one of the compartments. He held the opened vial towards Sully.

Sully opened his mouth and placed on of his canines into the vial. After a few seconds, a black oozing substance came out of the canine.

"What was that?"

_"Hellhound poison."_

"What does it do?"

_"Kill people."_

"How?"

_"Makes them suicide."_

Wow that poison was dangerous. He resisted the urge to test the poison on himself and put the stopper back onto the vial. He conjured a velvet box and placed the three potential wand cores inside.

"Thanks, I don't know how to thank you."

_"Well first, you can open your mouth and form the word thank. After that you can say the word you. I'm pretty sure that would suffice."_

Harry ignored the sarcastic remark from Braze and thanked his familiars.

The next day, Harry visited Ollivander, the only wand maker he knew.

"Hello can you make a wand for me?"

"Ah yes Mr.. I don't believe I've had the pleasure of ever meeting you before. You must be from out of the country. Since you're are from out of the country, you aren't a citizen of England, so technically the Ministry wand laws don't apply to you. Yes, I can make a wand for you. Come with me into my workroom."

Harry obediently followed the old wizard into the back of the wand shop.

"Now here are the wand blanks. There are different wood types that might _call_ to you. There are plenty of choices. Since the Ministry became a freak with control they banned all custom made wands and applied monitoring charms on my wand stock. I can only use the most common wand materials. They're tracking the spells of most of wizarding Britain. Bastards. "

Ollivander opened a few cabinets and took out wand blanks. Harry let his magic run over the wood blanks. He picked up light colored piece of wood.

"This one. It feels right."

"Ah, I remember retrieving that piece of wood. A piece of the jealously guarded Yggdrasil, the World Tree. A Bowtruckle I was friendly with was kind enough to bring me one branch from the middle of the tree. The top of the tree is Creation while the roots of the tree is Destruction, the wand will be evenly balanced for both. "

Why couldn't he have a normal wand? Like a wand with yew wood or pine or something normal. No, he _had _to get some rare piece of wood like a wand made from a mystical tree. Fate must have something against him.

"You have potential for greatness. Now on to the wand cores. Going from the wand blank you chose the cores must be powerful as well."

"Actually, I want to use my own wand cores."

"Really, can I seen them?"

Harry handed Ollivander the velvet box with his wand cores in them .

Ollivander opened it and immediately fainted.

Harry sighed and Enervated the old wand maker. His life could never be normal could it?

"What's so special about these wand cores?"

"These are beyond rare. The golden red feather is one of the primaries of a phoenix. They never give up their primary feathers because they need all of them to fly. This feather is full of magic, the phoenix it came from must be one of the Ancient Creatures."

"Ancient Creatures?"

"Magical creatures who existed before the rise of humans. Most magical creatures grow more powerful the older they live. Not many of them are alive now but the ones who do are powerful beyond belief. I believe this feather was freely given. "

"Okay."

Ok, he had a phoenix familiar. That was rare but another kick to the balls of normalcy was that the phoenix was older than mankind.

"Now, this black ooze in the vial. That is hellhound poison. Hellhounds are notoriously hard to find let alone be subdued long enough for you to extract the poison from its canines. They also travel in packs, to subdue one means to subdue the rest of its pack. Judging by the consistency of the poison , the hellhound it came from is either an Alpha male or an Alpha female."

So, Sully was the leader of his pack of Hellhounds. Of course he couldn't gotten an average Hellhound. No, only the best Hellhound for Harry Potter, fate's whipping boy.

"As rare as the other two materials were, this last one is the rarest. This is the shed skin of a fire salamander. Most fire salamanders die when they leave the magical fire where they were born. Not many of them live past the first year. The older the fire salamander the longer they can stay away from a magical fire. This skin could easily be the only one in existence at the moment. Are you sure you want it as a wand core?"

Harry nodded.

"Okay, let's see. I can make two wands for these. The phoenix primary feather will react badly with the hellhound poison, the feather being a pure Light and the poison being Dark. The fire salamander skin is neutral and will work with either one. I'm going to put the skin with the poison since the feather is extremely strong without another core."

The wand maker mumbled for a few more seconds and turned his attention back to Harry.

"Choose another wand blank while I try to fit the hellhound poison and the skin into the wand blank you already chose."

Harry let his magic wash over the wand blanks again. Odd, none of them felt _right_ to him. He breathed deeply and let his magic sweep over the whole store. There was this wood that felt right in the bottom drawer near the back of the room.

He stealthily made his way to the back of the room and looked at the drawer under mage sight. Predictable there were wards around the wand blank. Sadly, he had to do some breaking and entering. This wand called to him more than the Yggdrasil wand blank and his holly and phoenix wand.

Harry looked at the drawer with a critical eye. This was good work but it didn't hold a candle to Egyptian wards. He muttered one of the ward breaking spells developed by one of the Egyptians. It created a hole in the ward that allowed entrance to inside of the ward. Tomb raiders used to use this spell because no one would know that the ward now had a flaw.

The spell did its job and Harry created a hole large enough for him to retrieve the wand. He opened the drawer and removed a slender wand that shined gold under the light.

"Remove your hand from that wand this instant."

Harry turned around to see Ollivander holding a wand to his head.

"That wand blank is the rarest one in this store. The Yggdrasil wand blank is nothing compared to this wood. I told you to choose a wand blank, not look through my stuff."

"But this wand blank feels the best to me."

Ollivander looked at him with a calculating look.

"Well, then. I believe I owe you an apology Mr. Potter."

"What?"

"Yes, that wand blank was specially crafted for you, Mr. Potter. I spent a few years looking for the wand that would best fit the Boy-Who-Lived for killing Voldemort. Sadly the Ministry didn't allow me to craft custom made wands for even the Boy-Who-Lived so I locked up the wand blank."

"You won't tell anybody right? Nobody needs to know I was here."

"Your secret is safe with me. The situation must be dire if you had to disguise yourself with a spell that was ancient in Merlin's day. Now I'll have a wand made from wood from the Yggdrasil tree with a dual core of fire salamander skin and Hellhound poison. Your second wand with a core of a phoenix primary feather and wood from a one of a kind tree."

"What kind of tree?"

Ollivander's eyes twinkled. He must be related to Dumbledore.

"The Lightening Tree of course. A rare tree that is native to the Bermuda Triangle region. It attracts lightening to itself and uses it as energy in place of the sun. Since it is highly magical, most muggle equipment fail near it. Also they are jealously guarded by the Fae. Anybody who approaches the tree are captured and killed. I was lucky enough to get a branch after I saved the Fae Princess."

"Umm, thanks for going through all that trouble."

"No problem. It was the least I could do for the Boy-Who-Lived. After all, the lightning bolt is the symbol for protection in the Runic language."

Harry just stared at the wand maker.

"Here are your completed wands. Have a good day Mr. Potter."

Harry just walked out of the store as if in a trance. Fate kicked him in the balls again. He was marked with the Rune of Protection. He had two rare woods in his wands as well as rare wand cores.

Wait he forgot to pay. The conniving old wand maker distracted him and he forgot to pay. He chuckled darkly. Time to make a donation to Ollivander's Wand Store.

He put the Lightning Rod, he might be crazy but with three wands he wanted to name them, into the fold of reality where his sword and his Ministry Stick was. The In-Between Point was the one he was going to use in public. It looked the most like a yew wood wand with umm... dragon heartstring.

August 31,1994

The rest of the summer, however short, was more enjoyable. Dumbledore left him alone secure in his knowledge that Harry was being abused at 4 Privet Drive. There were no more unwarranted surprises. He just looked for books during the morning and served drinks and food at night.

The routine was interrupted by a Gringott's job. Ragnok had him subdue tomb guardians and then play bodyguard for a rich wizard tourist who paid at least a small fortune to visit a tomb. The man must have had a death wish. While he was visiting the safest tomb, he managed to trigger dormant curses and a few sleeping tomb guardians. He was paid in gold, to keep up appearances that he was a man who worked for money to pay for food and stuff. Ragnok paid him in Goblin Magic.

Ragnok and him somewhat bonded over the whole "coming out" with his abuse. The goblin wasn't as harsh and was sometimes nice. They always talked after Harry's evening shift was completed. The legal obstacles for the retribution were almost complete. He promised Harry pensieve memories of each time they got revenge for Harry's abuse.

His familiars had found a cozy cave on the far side of the lake at Hogwarts, the Black Lake. They had moved boulders in front of the entrance and Loreal fused them some of them together. There were plenty of air holes and nobody large enough to harm then could walk in. They would access the cave through flaming and in Sully's case ghosting.

Truthfully this summer was the best one he had ever had. Frankly if he stayed at the Dursleys after taking that hot shower his summer would still be the best one. Now that he'd thought about it that was really pathetic. At least his summers were going to get better.

He had said good bye to Rosmerta. He said he was going to take a vacation. He promised to come back and say hello someday. She cried a bit and proceeded to down a bottle of Firewhiskey and then another. Harry took pity on her and levitated her to a cot in the storage room. He handled the rest of customers and closed the inn early so he could get some sleep too.

**A/n:**For those of you who couldn't figure it out. The Lightning Rod is the one made of Lightning Wood. The In-Between Point is the one made from Hell-Hound poison, fire salamander skin and wood from the Yggdrasil tree. Named for its neutrality between Light and Dark. The Ministry Wand is the only technically legal wand that is sanctioned by the Ministry of Magic.

Also the time Harry got sent back to the Dursleys. He did the same routine as last time, obliviations and some mind tampering.

**Zale Potter**: Neville/Harry... interesting pairing. I'm might use that pairing in later stories. XD

**AcadianProud:** Still thinking about those two things. Hermione will be on Harry's side at the end but she'll be wavering between adult authority and Harry.

**njferrell:** Interesting ideas about Hermione's pairing. Both will be considered.

**roxel:** Thanks. Maybe Fred and George instead one or the another. I don't want the other twin to feel bad.

**Oceane:** They'll switch off, I can't see Harry being only a bottom due to his personality, stubborn and hot-headed, and Draco is too proud to be a bottom. It will be a long story but the updates might come a little slower (by little I mean a lot).

And a big thank you for all the people who reviewed to give a compliment.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

Warning:  not much in terms of earning that M rating

The timeline is twisted beyond belief. I don't have a copy of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire but let's just say that this is a fanfiction and not get all nitpicky about a skewed timeline.

September 1, 1994

"Hurry up Gran. The train might leave without me."

Neville waited impatiently at the bottom of his stairs for his grandmother to come downstairs. He was eager to go to Hogwarts for once. Usually going to Hogwarts meant facing scorn from his lack of ability to use magic and his failure at potions. Now, he was much better at both and was eager to show everybody his new skills.

"Come on. I want to get a good seat on the train. If we go late, there won't be any seats. I might have to sit with people I don't know."

"Relax, Neville. I'm coming. Remember your manners and your pureblood training. I don't want any letters from the Headmaster about bad behavior or lack of decorum. Come along then."

Neville wandlessly levitated his trunk and followed his grandmother into the Floo. Violet padded quietly behind them under a disillusionment spell.

They exited the Floo into 9 and three quarters station, where the Hogwarts Train was waiting. A crowd of people were already there. Parents were giving their children one last hug and the children were embarrassingly fending off their parents.

Augusta scanned the crowd and noticed parents hugging their children. She looked at Neville out of the corner of her eye. He had never gotten that kind of affection from her or his parents, mostly because of the vegetable like condition they were in. She decided to try something she had never done to Neville before.

Neville gave a start of surprise when his grandmother hugged him. This was new. He felt slightly warm on the inside and gladly returned the hug. His grandmother stepped back after a few seconds of hugging and gently shoved Neville towards the train.

"Thanks for the hug, Gran."

"Just promise to write every once in a while. I'll see during the Christmas Holidays."

"Bye."

Neville waved good bye and made his way towards the train. He looked into each compartment in the train. He chose an empty one when he didn't find anybody he knew. When he looked out the window and saw his grandmother was still there. He waved good-bye and smiled when she waved back.

Hermione sighed as her parents bickered about sending her back to Hogwarts. They didn't know what was going on in the school and heard some reports of a troll in the castle and some vague remarks about their daughter turning into stone?

"I won't send my little princess back to that horrid school." yelled her dad.

"Honey, it's a bit late. We're already almost to the train station." countered her mom.

"Well she won't go next year." blustered her dad.

"Dan, you know our little girl is growing and becoming more independent. As long she's happy it's fine with me."

"Emma, dear. What if she doesn't know what's good for her? What if she becomes some kind of magical delinquent?"

Hermione sighed and leaned her head against the window. She watched the houses whizz by with her best bored expression. Her parents did care about her but her dad was just a bit too protective. He was the dictionary example of the type of dad that would threaten potential boyfriends with a shotgun.

She loved Hogwarts and especially magic. She had friends, only two but it was more than at her primary school, and acquaintances that actually tolerated her presence. Back at her old school, everybody felt they were a better person if they picked on her. She usually spent recess in a corner and hoped that nobody would pick on her. Sadly the highlight of daily recess was Pick on the Know-It-All.

At Hogwart's though, she could defend herself using magic and at the very least nobody called her names to her face. Except in her first year with that idiot Ron, she only tolerated him because she didn't want Harry to stop being her friend.

She gratefully got out of the car to escape the bickering from her parents. Dan, her dad, dragged her school trunk out of the trunk of the car but didn't stop arguing with her mom. They walked towards King's Cross Station yet the bickering still didn't stop.

Hermione hugged her parents and they stopped bickering for a second to hug back.

"We love you Hermione. We want what's best for you. Sadly your dad wants what's best for your body and I want you to be happy." said Emma gently.

"That's makes me sound bad. I want our little girl to stay in one piece while you want her to enjoy the last one year of her life."

"Stop that. She won't die. If you don't live for life then what is there to live for?"

"I don't know, maybe celebrating her twenty first birthday by giving her a shot of wine. Maybe the joy of watching her become a grown woman."

Hermione sighed as the temporary peace was immediately shattered. When would her parents ever grow up. She giggled as that thought ran through her mind. Her parents were supposed to say that to her.

She hugged her parents good bye again and gave her dad a kiss on the cheek before running off. Hermione looked back to see her parents waving back to her before starting to bicker again. Oh well, maybe they'll stop the next time she goes back home.

She looked through the compartments up and down the train. Seeing Neville sitting by himself, she decided to sit with him.

"Hello, Neville how was your summer?"

"Get your lazy arse down here Ronald Bilius Weasley. Everybody else is already down and here and ready to go to the King's Cross."

"Coming Mom. Five more minutes."

"You said that twenty minutes ago. If you don't get down here, I'm conjuring my wooden ladle and applying it to your backside."

"Fine, I'm coming."

Ron ran down the stairs with his trunk behind him. Ginny giggled when she saw the white underwear sticking out of the trunk. The twins just smirked at each other before applying a sticking charm to the underwear. Percy studiously ignored it. Ron and Mrs. Weasley didn't notice.

"Come on kids, into the Floo. If we don't hurry the train might leave without us."

The Weasley kids and their mother piled into the fireplace. Money was a bit tight so they all squeezed into the fireplace using only one handful of Floo powder. They appeared at King's Cross Station.

"Ok kids. Behave yourselves."

A look was directed at the Twins who were cheerfully whistling.

"Do good in class."

A look was directed towards Ron, who was too busy staring at a cart of sweets.

"Make sure you don't concentrate on your crush instead of your schoolwork."

Another look was directed towards Ginny who listened and blushed furiously.

Percy decided to add in his two bits.

"Stay from that Potter brat. The fame has gone to his head. He's a threat to the Ministry, your future employers."

Ginny snorted in annoyance. Her brother should have been put in Hufflepuff with the loyalty he showed to the Ministry or at least Slytherin with the amount of ambition he had. Somehow he had adopted the attitude the Minister had towards Harry, a threat towards the Minister's reelection due to his popularity. Percy could such a prat.

Fred grinned and tied his shoes together with a spell. George copied his twin's grin and sewed the arms of his shirt to his sides. They both shaved all of his hair off. Fred made sure that whenever he looked in the mirror he would still see hair. George made sure that the hair he lost would come back into a long beard.

"Sorry Percy." said Fred.

"I think a compartment in the train is calling our names. " said George.

"Gotta run."

The twins dashed off towards the train with their luggage floating behind them. Ginny took their cue and ran off too. Ron followed them while dragging his trunk behind using his own hands instead of levitating it.

The twins went to sit with Lee Jordan who just happened to be in the same compartment was Alicia Spinnet and Angeline Johnson, the crushes of Fred and George respectively.

Ginny went to sit with Hermione. After the Chamber of Secrets incident, she wasn't too close the girls in her year. Her best friend was Luna from Ravenclaw but she wasn't here yet.

Ron finally finished dragging his trunk into the train. He entered the compartment where Hermione was. He looked at the other occupants in the room with distaste. Ginny was too young to be hanging out with the older kids. Neville was pants at everything he did. He didn't deserve to be with the Golden Trio. At least he lost that baby fat.

"Ginny, you should be hanging out with the kids your age. We're too old for you. Some of the things we talk about shouldn't be heard by young ears."

"Shut it Ron. Are you guys so close that talking about things like I don't know sex? By the way Hermione's blushing, I guess not. So what things can't a girl a year younger than you listen to."

Ron's brain started to do the hardest thinking he had ever done.

"Um, stuff like... the things... we learned...in third year... that you haven't yet."

Ron looked triumphant for a few seconds until Hermione cleanly wiped it off of his face.

"Right Ron. Like you even paid attention during one class. Tell me Ron who was the Defense against Dark Arts teacher this year."

His brain got the second workout while he tried to think of an answer.

"Harry's parent's friend. Yea I paid attention during class. Shouldn't you be helping me Hermione? After all you knew me longer than Ginny so we have to be better friends."

"Shut it Ron. I'm staying here unless you want to help me try out my Bat-Bogey Hex. I found a way to make more bats fly out of your nose. "

Ron's face paled at the thought of that hex. It made bats made of boogers fly out of his nose and attack him. It was painful and humiliating.

"Ok fine but don't blame me if you run out of this place screaming."

"No worries there, brother."

Luna twirled in a circle for her father to see her new dress. She giggled as her father pulled her into a hug.

"Do you like my dress daddy?"

"Of course I do. It's the best dress I've ever seen."

"But what about the other dresses I made. You don't like them do you?"

"Of course I love them. Just like I love you."

Xenophilius Lovegood spoiled Luna. He was afraid that she might not grow up happy without a mother so he did his best to make her smile. They looked for shy magical creatures together and she helped him write his paper, the Quibbler. They probably had the best father and daughter relationship in the country.

He was still concerned about her though. Luna had withdrawn into herself and became more aloof. She didn't have any kind of connection with anybody other than him. He believed that after losing her mum she was afraid to get close to anybody else in fear of losing them too.

"Come on, Luna. We have to go to King's Cross Station so you can go to Hogwarts."

"I don't want to. Everybody in my year laughs at me and steals my things. Ginny is the only one whom I'm friends with. Can't I stay here and help you look for the Crumple Horned Snorkack?"

"Sorry, dear. If you don't take your Owls and your NEWTS, nobody will consider you for a job even if you are the most wonderful witch in the world."

"Fine, but after I take my NEWTS, I'm working for the Quibbler."

"Okay, but I have to ask the editor if he'll let you work for the Quibbler. They don't just accept anybody though."

"Daddy, but you're the editor and you said I could work for you whenever I wanted to."

She giggled as her dad started to tickle her. She pouted when he stopped.

"You're going to be late if I keep on tickling you. Grab your trunk."

Luna pouted some more and dragged her trunk behind her as they took the Floo to King's Cross Station.

Xeno gave his daughter a good-bye hug and kissed her cheek.

"Make sure you write."

"Ok daddy. See you on the Christmas Holidays."

Luna levitated her trunk and went in search for Ginny.

She found Ginny sitting with another group of older kids.

"Hello Ginny. Can I sit here?"

"Of course not." said Ron, with his classic foot- in-mouth syndrome.

Luna wilted a bit and turned to leave when she heard screams of pure agony come from behind her. Reacting instinctively she pulled out her wand to find Ron screaming on the floor as green bats clawed his face.

"It's okay, Luna. He'll be fine in a couple of minutes. Ignore Ron, you can sit here."

Luna stowed her trunk away in the top compartment and sat down next to Ginny.

Draco stood still as his dad cast a spell on him. The Malfoy Family, unlike popular belief, didn't want to serve Voldemort. Lucius's father, Abraxas, forced his son to take the Dark Mark with the threat of disowning him. Disowning a member of family was the biggest insult in pureblood circles. If Lucius was disowned nobody would hire him. Taking the Dark Mark was the biggest mistake of his life.

When he heard the Dark Lord was dead, he promptly rejoiced until the news that there was no body reached his ears. He was privy to the knowledge that the Dark Lord had reached some kind of level of immortality in the form of a black diary. Try as he might the diary wouldn't be destroyed. If there was no body then there was no way to confirm that the Dark Lord didn't just strip and then run away.

He was positive that the Dark Lord would return and demand that his son be introduced into the ranks of the Death Eaters. That was the one thing he had been fighting against the past decade. There was a connection between Draco's core and a large collection of ward stones in a Malfoy safe house in France. The connection insured that his son would have an below-average core. The ward stones were all fully charged, and that attested to the amount of power his son had if he didn't have that connection.

"Okay the connection is still in place. Make sure you act like a pureblood supremacist at all times when you're with other people. A true Slytherin is cunning enough to hide his talents from other people. If somebody underestimates you, you automatically have the upper hand."

Draco nodded. These lessons had been drilled into him. Voldemort would most likely keep him since if his father died he would inherit. That would mean he wouldn't be sent on any suicide missions or any missions for that matter since he was such a bad wizard.

"I know. "

"Don't antagonize Potter as much as you did last year. Dumbledore and him are the only people to turn to if the Dark Lord finds out about the deception about your power. You still have to insult him once in a while so that the Dark Lord will not suspect any allegiance to Potter."

"Yes, father."

"Try to have fun."

"Yes, father."

"Follow me. We're taking the Floo to King's Cross Station. Levitate your trunk behind you."

Draco and his father stepped into the fireplace and appeared into King's Cross Station.

"Go ahead and find a compartment. I can't show any affection towards you in public else somebody would try and use you as leverage against me. Find a compartment with only Slytherin students. No one must question our supposed loyalty to him."

"Yes father." said Draco with a sigh and went to find the right compartment. He knew what his godfather must have been feeling when he had to live a double life.

Sadly he found the right compartment. All of the Death Eater children were there too. Vincent Crabbe and Gregory Goyle scooted over to give him room. His father believed that the Dark Lord hired them to serve a double purpose. One to keep him alive from physical threats and to keep tabs on him.

The girl across from his shamelessly fluttered her eyes and sent love-filled gazes towards him. Pansy Parkinson was also a soon-to-be Death Eater as well as a soon-to-be wife of his. As the pureblood supremacy rules dictated, he had to marry a pureblood witch to keep the Malfoy line pure. Unfortunately for him, Pansy was the most attractive pureblood witch allied with Voldemort. The other pureblood witches were either neutral or on the Light side.

The rest of the Death Eater Initiates were Theodore Nott and Millicent Bulstrode. Theodore Nott was one hundred percent with Voldemort. Rumor had it that his dad took him Muggle hunting and they managed to torture a family for hours. Millicent on the other hand would gladly not become a Death Eater. She was too kind-hearted and nice for anything like that.

Harry said one last good- bye to Rosmerta and stood there for 5 minutes as she hugged him and cried on his shoulder. He promised again to visit sometime in the future. She brought out a case of Firewhiskeys and gave it to Harry as a parting gift and went into the back to guzzle more Firewhiskey. He felt slightly guilty about deceiving her and flamed to King's Cross station.

When appeared he dropped his glamour and rushed to find a compartment before anybody could have time to gawk at the Boy-Who-Lived. He quickly searched through the train until he found where Hermione and Ron were sitting.

"Sorry I'm late. I had some things to do before I left."

"It's okay. Now that you're here, tell Ginny and Luna to find another compartment. There too young to be in here. Neville shouldn't be in here either, he isn't part of the Golden Trio."

Ginny pulled out her wand and pointed it at Ron. Ron went down screaming as more Bat-Bogeys claws their way out of his nose and assaulted him.

"Any more people who think we should leave?"

Everybody in the compartment vigorously shook their head and Ginny put away her wand with a satisfied look.

After a few minutes of awkwardly staring at a still screaming Ron, Hermione finally asked how everybody's summer was going.

They all answered with various degrees of enthusiasm. Neville excitedly told a story about training with Alastor Moody. Everybody, except for Ron, eagerly listened.

Ginny told them about how dull their summer was before the World Cup. Hermione butted in and told them about being invited to the World Cup with the Weasleys. She said that she was frightened to death when Death Eaters started to torment Muggles and set fire to tents. Luckily everybody was there so Mr. Weasley portkeyed them back to the Burrow.

Harry made up some complicated lie about being kidnapped by some Dark wizards and that Dumbledore saved him and returned him back to the Dursleys. The last statement was said with some bitterness. He had constructed a set of false memories of his summer to fool any snoopers into his mind.

They talked and chatted while Ron sullenly sat in the corner and ignored the rest of the occupants.

Neville had disillusioned Violet and had put her on the other side of him, the side closest to the window. He was a bit wary when the compartment started to fill up and Violet was squashed against the window pane.

"It seems a bit cramped in here. Why don't I free up another space?"

"You mean you're going to finally leave." asked Ron.

Ginny lazily flicked her wand towards Ron and he succumbed to the Bat-Bogey Hex.

Luna sat up and plopped herself down on Neville's lap.

Neville blushed red and tried to gently push her off.

"What are you doing Neville? Don't most teenage guys wish to have a girl on their lap?"

Neville blushed redder than Ron's hair and tried to get out from under Luna.

"Luna, stop there's enough room for you without you sitting on me."

"What's wrong with me sitting on you? From the hard thing poking my bottom, you rather enjoy this."

Neville blushed even more but stopped trying to push Luna off.

_"That girl is very nice. It's less cramped over here."_

_"Be quiet Violet."_

Conservation from Neville completely disappeared as Luna sat comfortably on his lap. Hermione and Ginny giggled as they discussed Neville's predicament. Harry just looked at him sympathetically and opened a book.

This went on for quite a while. Hermione and Ginny moved onto other topics. Harry kept on reading an unlabeled book. Neville got over the awkwardness of having a girl in his lap and was quietly talking to Luna. Ron tried to get them to play Exploding Snap, a wizarding card game. When everybody ignored him, he started to ignore everybody else.

"Hey, Neville. We're almost to Hogwarts, you better change into your robe."

"How do you know, Luna?"

"Well, I never had anybody to talk to so I just looked out the window and memorized the sights."

"I hope I was a better conversationalist than nobody."

"You were much better than the Spinning Humdingers. Do you want to have another conversation later in Hogsmeade?"

"Is that a date?"

"If you want it to be Neville. "

Neville blushed and started to undress, completely forgetting about the rest of the compartment,

As he was in the middle of taking off his shirt, he finally noticed the girls, and Harry but he was more sneaky, staring at him.

"What's wrong?"

"They're staring at your definite musculature, Neville. You look quite handsome. I'm glad you're taken." said Luna in a matter of fact voice.

"Taken by whom. I might want to contest that." said Ginny.

"By me of course. I don't want to hurt my only friend, but Neville is quite worth it."

Neville quickly finished changing to avoid more comments. He sat down again and Luna resumed her vigil on his lap.

Harry closed the Tome of Ancient Greek Spells and switched his Muggle clothing with his Hogwart's robes.

Ginny and Hermione both pouted. They wanted a peek at the Boy-Who-Lived too. If Neville looked good, that meant Harry would look twice as good.

Harry ignored them and wondered where Draco was. He usually paid a visit by now.

Draco's ride to Hogwarts was less than satisfactory. His bodyguards were too large and were constantly jostling him for space. Pansy was flirting with him to whole ride. The only person who even spoke a whole sentence was Millicent. The rest of the train ride was spent in stony silence and after the snack cart came back, chewing sounds.

He gladly got off the train when it arrived at Hogwarts. He wanted to go to Harry's cabin to just see him again after three months. His excuse was always to poke fun at him. If his two bodyguards weren't accompanying him, he would have just said hi and made some small-talk.

The rest of the Death Eater Initiate Crew followed him as they piled into a carriage pulled by thestrals. Thestrals were horse-like creatures with skeletal wings. They could only be seen by somebody who had witnessed a death.

He sighed as the stony silence from the train followed them into the carriage. He heard distinct laughter from the carriage behind him and wished that he could choose his friends. Sadly his future seemed to well planned out for him.

Harry watched a blonde haired boy enter one of the carriages. Draco was here but where was his daily ritual of putting down Harry and his friends. He chose the carriage behind Draco's and waited for the rest of his friends to follow him.

"Neville, my leg are too cramped after sitting on your lap."

Luna tried to stand but immediately collapsed.

"I can't walk. Please can you carry me?"

Neville's resolve wavered and sighed.

"Fine."

He scooped her off of the ground and carried her to the carriages. Luna waved her wand and their trunks started to follow them. Violet followed them too.

_"Are you having fun, Neville?"_

_"Be quiet, Violet. I'm just helping her."_

Luna giggled.

"Your nundu is very nice. I want to pet her someday."

Neville almost dropped Luna in shock.

"How did you know she was there?"

"It's a she? What did you name her? Something cute because she looks so huggable."

"V-V-Violet." Neville stammered out as he tried his best not to drop Luna from the amount of shock.

_"I believe she can really see me. Maybe she won't tell anybody."_

"Will you tell anybody Violet is with me?"

"Of course not, silly. I'll never betray your trust like that. After all I still want that date you promised me."

"I promised you a date?"

Neville's mind started to spin and he felt the need to sit down.

"Yes, we're going to Hogsmeade for our date. I'll promise you'll enjoy it. "

"Okay." said Neville tentatively. Luna was going a bit fast for him. A few hours ago they just met and now they were dating?

"Wipe that look off your face. We have to make it to the carriages before they leave without us."

Neville meekly complied and carried Luna to the carriages while Violet was snickering the whole time.

_"Be quiet, Violet. You won't want me laughing if you find the perfect male nundu."_

Violet immediately fell silent.

Hermione and Ginny were already sitting in the carriage when Neville and Luna came into sight. They both snickered and continued to whisper to each other.

Harry caught the words, Neville...Luna...couple...cute...together...Harry?...Really?..., he really wished they used a silencing spell. He didn't want to listen to two girls discuss him and Neville.

Luna burrowed her head into Neville's chest and breathed in Neville's scent. It felt familiar and comforting. She shifter her head a bit and used his bicep as a pillow. Luna then promptly fell asleep.

Neville noticed the lack of movement from Luna as he neared the carriage. He looked down onto a sleeping Luna with a small smile on her face. He smiled at her and brushed some stray strands of hair out of her face. She looked happy and relaxed when she was sleeping. He sat down in the carriage and let Luna use his shoulder as a pillow as she continued to sleep.

Ginny watched Neville and Luna with a bittersweet smile. They just met but they seemed like a perfect match. She used to think that Harry and her were made for each other but after awhile it didn't look like that anymore. She saw the looks Harry gave her. They only contained a love for her as a sister and nothing else. Neville was lucky, he didn't have to go through crowds of people to find the best one for him.

Hermione watched with a bittersweet smile too. Neville and Luna looked happy together. They looked like a couple from sappy romance movies without any of the angst. She wished she could somebody like Neville who cared about her. She wasn't pretty and she scared away all the boys her age with her intelligence. Pureblood wizards didn't care for anything but looks and if their wife could produce children to carry on the line. They didn't spare a second glance towards her.

Harry watched with a bittersweet smile. He would probably never have that kind of relationship. Everybody wanted a piece of him since he was the Boy-Who-Lived. If word got out that he was the Head of three Ancient and Noble Houses, there would be even more marriage proposals and people who wanted to marry him for more fame.

Neville watched Luna with a bittersweet smile. She was pretty and smart. His grandmother would approve of her if he was happy. When she got to know him, she would reject him because he wasn't good enough for him. He would enjoy her company as long it lasted.

Draco watched the occupants of his carriage with a bittersweet smile. Being friends with these people was necessary for his continued health when the Dark Lord came back. He had to but he didn't enjoy any of their company except maybe for Millicent because she was nicer and could form a whole sentence without trying really hard to. The same couldn't be said for Crabbe and Goyle. They barely had brain cells to start with. Theodore barely spoke at all and Pansy was too busy flirting to speak. What he wouldn't give to control his own future.

The carriage carrying the Hogwart's students settled down onto the front lawn. The students piled out of the carriages and they walked into the Great Hall.

Luna was still sleeping and Neville was still carrying her. He was reluctant to put her at the Ravenclaw table with her fast asleep so he put her down next to him and they resumed the same position as in the carriage.

Hermione and Ginny sat across from Neville while Harry sat next to Neville. Ron was still sulking after being ignored the whole way to Hogwarts and sat next to Harry. He had to prove he was still Harry's best mate after being snubbed by Hermione of all people.

"Hey Harry, sorry about my bad reaction to Luna, Ginny and Neville. I wasn't used to people outside of the Golden Trio being in the compartment. "

"It's fine." Harry responded without looking.

Ron valiantly tried again.

"So do you want to go the kitchen for a midnight snack later?"

"Mm, okay."

Ron silently fumed. First he didn't go to the World Cup with him and now he isn't paying his full attention to his best mate.

Harry was too busy to engage in idle conversation. With the three year streak of being almost killed by the Defense Against Dark Art teachers, he wanted to dispose of the teacher if he/she proved to be a threat.

The teacher in question had already arrived. He was sitting on the edge next to Snape and was eyeing the man dangerously. Harry switched on his mage-sight to look at the man carefully, more specifically his arm. There was no swirling mass of darkness. Snape however had the swirling mass of darkness that signified the Dark Mark. Hopefully he was either retarded like Lockhart or he might have good intentions like Remus.

The Sorting of the new first years was well under way. Students were split between the four houses. Some houses got a few more student than the other houses but it was almost even.

Dumbledore proceeded to the next Hogwart's tradition, the speech before the Feast.

"Ah, another year at Hogwarts, filled with learning and friendship. I hope you had a marvelous summer. I have an important announcement to make. There will be no Quidditch matches. "

His remark was met with dismay from the whole Hall. Ron was protesting quite vigorously. Harry took the news quite calmly. Screaming protests at the Headmaster wasn't the best way to convince him to change his mind. Quidditch would only cut into his personal time.

Dumbledore calmly waited until the most ardent Quidditch fans screamed themselves hoarse.

"Now, there's no reason to panic. The reason it has been cancelled is because of the Triwizard Tournament."

Whispers started to spread like wildfire.

"Triwizard Tournament?"

"What is that?"

"I heard it was really dangerous."

Dumbledore waited till the whispers died down.

"As you all know, the Triwizard Tournament is a tournament where one wizard from one of three prestigious schools compete in various tasks to earn the most points. The artifact the Goblet of Fire will be the impartial judge to decide who the champion for each school is. Would everybody please join me outside?"

Dumbledore strode out of the Hall followed by the masses of Hogwart's students. The door swung open as the Headmaster and his students walked out of the Great Hall.

He stopped at the edge of the Black Lake and stood there.

Everybody craned their necks looking for a sign of whatever Dumbledore dragged them outside for.

Harry glared at the Headmaster behind his back. Even with small matters like telling the students why they all followed him outside, he still didn't tell them anything important. He discretely drew his Ministry wand just in case.

As always, Luna was still asleep and Neville was carrying her. Nobody seemed to notice anything strange about that so far so he didn't push his luck by talking to people. He carried Luna to where Dumbledore was standing and waited among his classmates.

Luna was awake. She had been awake since the Sorting. The first years were loud and nobody could sleep through the din in the Great Hall. She pretended to be asleep so Neville would continue to carry her. She liked the feel of his arms around her and how close they were. She cast multiple notice-me-not charms on her and Neville to make sure they weren't interrupted.

"Hey look what's that?" yelled Collin Creevey, the _photographer _(read stalker), of the school .

Everybody followed his pointing finger upwards as they squinted to see what that was.

"It's a bird." yelled one of the first years excitedly.

"No it's a plane." yelled one of the Muggleborn students.

The Muggle-raised students laughed at the Superman reference while the purebloods looked the other witches and wizards with confusion.

It turned out that it was neither, a plane would have been deterred by the wards. So far nobody at the airports noticed how all their planes never crossed a circular region in Scotland. The item Colin saw were carriages pulled by giant horses with wings, Abraxan.

The carriages were white and looked like the classic Cinderella stage coach. The Abraxan wheeled around to make a landing.

"Look at the water." yelled another random student.

All eyes peeled away from the flying horses and carriages and moved towards the Black Lake.

Dramatically, a ship rose out of the depths of the water. The masts and deck dripped with water as it ascended out of the Black Lake.

The carriages landed and their doors swung open. Out stepped the students of Beauxbaton. Female witches stepped out in blue cloaks and hats. Their Headmistress, Madame Maxine, was as large as Hagrid. She stepped out of her own carriage and clapped her hand once. The students filed up into three separate lines and she led them into the Great Hall.

The ship landed ashore and a plank was dropped from the deck. Students from Durmstrang marched out of the ship in two lines. Behind them walked the Headmaster, Igor Karkaroff, and his prized student Victor Krum.

"Come now students. The other schools are waiting for us to begin the Feast."

Dumbledore led his students behind him in an ungainly mass as they went back to their respective House tables.

The other schools were seated in two extra tables that were added while everybody was outside. Their headmasters were seated to either side of Dumbledore.

Dumbledore resumed his speech.

"The schools of Beauxbaton and Durmstrang are here as you can see. Their representatives will be competing against the representative from Hogwarts. Those who want to enter must put their school and name onto a scrap of parchment and drop it into the Goblet of Fire."

As he said this the Goblet of Fire behind him spewed blue fames.

"Only those of age may enter the tournament. To prevent those who are not of age, I will draw an Age Line around the Goblet. Those are not of age are repelled. The Forbidden Forest is of course forbidden. There is a forbidden item list in Filch's office. Now that the announcements are over may the feast begin."

With a clap of his hand, the food prepared by the house elves appeared. The tables groaned under the weight and bent slightly under the food.

Ron grabbed everything nearby and dug in.

"Mm, is this good food or what?"

Everybody near him scooted slowly away. As always, Ron forgot to swallow before shoving more food in his mouth and that talking with a mouthful might be bad manners. Ron didn't notice the small gap between him and rest of Gryffindor as he continued to chow down.

Harry was still sitting with Hermione, Ginny, Neville and surprisingly Luna. They had all backed away from the mess that was Ron and were eating at a more sedate pace. Neville had changed over the summer. He seemed more confident than the stuttering clumsy Neville of last year. Even before they had gotten to Hogwarts, he had managed to get a date at the next Hogsmeade weekend.

Neville was still slightly confused on how Luna became his girlfriend but so far it really didn't matter. Luna opted out of sitting at the Ravenclaw table and chose to sit next to him. So far the teachers hadn't really noticed yet, but he hoped his luck would hold out. It didn't.

"Mr. Longbottom, shouldn't you let Luna sit with her own House." said Professor McGonagall.

"She wanted to sit here."

"Let Ms. Lovegood decide for herself."

"I wanted to sit here."

"I'm sorry you too, but Luna has to sit with her own house." replied Professor McGonagall.

"Actually as stated by the rules stated in the student handbook from _Hogwarts, a History_, students only have to be sitting at their table during the announcement of the House Cup. The rule was made so that there would be House unity for the House Cup which all of the House worked for." interjected Hermione.

Professor McGonagall's left eye twitched.

"I would suggest showing house unity now and go sit with your House."

"No, I want to sit next to Neville."

"Go back to the correct table, now."

"No, it's fine. Luna can sit with me."

Her left eye twitched again.

"Detention both of you."

"Under the same set of rules, all detentions can be contested with the Head of House of said student." interjected Hermione.

Her left eye twitched again.

"Fine, detention tomorrow for Neville and Hermione. Go back to your House, Luna."

"No, the rules say I can stay here so I can."

"You can stay here if you want to but for every minute you do stay here that's a one week detention for both Neville and Hermione."

The argument was drawing a crowd of students from both Hogwarts and the visiting schools.

"It's fine. I don't need that much free time anyway. I'm not sure about Hermione though." said Neville.

Hermione was in shock. Detention on her first day at Hogwarts. But...but...that never happened. When she did get detentions at least she knew why she got it and it was never for a week. She burst out into tears and ran out of the Great Hall. Ginny followed her with a look of concern on her face.

Harry discretely left and followed them too. After all, the last time this happened, it didn't go quite well.

Hermione had dashed off to the nearest girl's bathroom to bawl her eyes out. Sadly it was one floor down and in the dungeons. Ginny followed close behind her calling her to wait. Harry followed at more discrete distance, he hoped that he didn't have to intervene.

Sadly he had to. When he waited by the girl's bathroom, he hoped not to hear any screaming. Suddenly a hand grabbed him and he was pulled into the bathroom. He pulled out his wand and was about to severely maim the hand when it turned out to be Ginny.

"What's wrong?"

"Help me convince Hermione it isn't the end of the world if she gets a wrongful detention."

Ginny dragged Harry into the bathroom where Hermione was sobbing on the bathroom floor. Thus began the most awkward hour of Harry's life.

At the Great Hall, things weren't as peachy.

"That's seven weeks of detention Mr. Longbottom. Your parents would be so disappointed in you. Move back to your House table, Luna."

"No, Neville is better than all of my dorm mates. He's nice and cares about me."

Professor McGonagall's left eye twitched again.

Neville, Luna and the Transfiguration professor were surrounded by an audience who had never seen Professor McGonagall so angry before for no apparent reason.

"Eight weeks of detention." she spat out.

"Fine, come on Luna. Let's go back to your table. We don't want to make my Head of House any angrier."

Plus, it looks like she might pop a blood vessel.

Neville escorted Luna to her table and sat down next to her again.

She stalked over and proceeded to add another week of detention.

Neville sighed. This was blown completely out of proportion. He gave Luna a hug and whispered something into her ear. She giggled and returned the hug. He returned to his table and Professor McGonagall returned to the staff table with a twitch in her left eye and a scowl on her face.

The twitch in her left eye stayed with her for the duration of the meal as she scowled at Neville and Luna.

Dumbledore stroked his beard and frowned. This wasn't going so well. He almost had to remove it but luckily the Longbottom kid managed to fix the issue before he had to force his hand. This wasn't an auspicious beginning for one of his plans.

Voldemort wasn't very thrilled. His master plan to get a body was delayed after Barty Crouch Jr. and his band of Death Eaters failed to infiltrate Hogwarts to set up the next step of his triumphant return to the Wizarding World. The plan was brilliant. He would capture Harry during the biggest event of the wizarding school history. He had to be from under the noses of multiple security personnel. Then the boy would be returned dead and fear would be planted into the hearts of witch and wizards. After all if the Boy-Who-Lived wasn't safe from his clutches with the security of the protection of three collective school then the average witch or wizard stood no chance.

It was a brilliant plan but he had to think of another way to infiltrate Hogwarts. He got it.

"Pettigrew carry me. Barty, follow me. We're going to make a second attempt to start my plan for a new body."

**A/n: **Two minds plotting something that won't be revealed until later. Neville and Luna hit it off pretty quickly. Luna is going to be very blunt and straight forward about things without an ounce of subtlety. So she makes her move on Neville faster than either Harry or Draco will. Makes up for Neville's shyness. Draco and Harry will take it much slower.

**AcadianProud: **Thanks for the compliments and for catching those typos.

**mineharmony:** I can't believe you read my comments to another reviewer or read the reviews from other people. That shows so much dedication to my story. I couldn't be happier that you did it. I agree that Draco will be bottom at first just to show Harry that he actually loves him instead of just using him like Dumbledore would. I'm actually insulted that you would think I would ignore your comments. A review with ideas for the story is one of the best right after one with compliments in it.

**Oceane: **You might have missed it because it was started this summer. It started rather quickly but it sadly is going to slow down. Thanks for catching that typo and the second review stating how much you love my story. I almost jumped in joy.

**Kitsune95:** Only Harry is going to have a fourth familiar. Hedwig of course. I'm having trouble giving Draco and Luna three familiars, let alone four. I'm not a fan of spiders, acromantulas are a big no. Sorry.


End file.
